


across the landscapes

by solfell



Series: we grow. it hurts at first. [twill winterborn] [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Dungeons & Dragons Character Backstory, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Multi, Other, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Personal Growth, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 63
Words: 32,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solfell/pseuds/solfell
Summary: A collection of mostly stand-alone stories and snippets that explore the past and present of Twill Winterborn, bear spirit barbarian and paladin of the Wildmother.Cross-posted from tumblr.
Relationships: Original Character(s) & Original Character(s)
Series: we grow. it hurts at first. [twill winterborn] [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638889
Kudos: 1





	1. Prey

**Author's Note:**

> [Related writings about Union, one of Twill's party members, written by Union's player, who is a very lovely person and a good friend. ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22796164)
> 
> Edit 4-2020: reordered things so it's all chronological!  
> 
> 
> \---  
>   
> You do not have to be good.  
> You do not have to walk on your knees  
> for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.  
> You only have to let the soft animal of your body  
> love what it loves.  
> Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.  
> Meanwhile the world goes on.  
> Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain  
> are moving across the landscapes,  
> over the prairies and the deep trees,  
> the mountains and the rivers.  
> Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,  
> are heading home again.  
> Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,  
> the world offers itself to your imagination,  
> calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -  
> over and over announcing your place  
> in the family of things.
> 
> _Wild Geese_ by Mary Oliver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of the many small turning points in Twill's childhood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: animal death, familial abuse

She was seven years old the first time she felt something die in her hands. It wasn’t her fault; a hawk’s talons are meant to rend and tear and destroy. The young rabbit had no chance, even before Twill managed to chase the bird away.

The rabbit’s rapid-fire heart pumped blood onto Twill’s hands while she tried to stem the flow. That’s what Mavrres told her the last time she scraped her knee. Press down where it’s bleeding, and it’ll stop, but the rabbit was bleeding everywhere. She couldn’t stop it. Twill’s small hands fluttered, fumbled, wavered. Her heart caught high in her throat.

She scooped the creature up in her arms and ran home. Her mother was in the kitchen, and Twill couldn’t speak past the desperation.

“No. Get that thing out of here,” her mother said, her face a cross between horror and fury. She pointed back to the door, arm a harsh line. “Animals don’t belong in the house. You know this.”

Twill didn’t know, because she’d never brought an animal home before. No one told her that rule, either. This wasn’t the best place to learn. She stumbled back outside and sat in the shadow of the house. In her hands, the rabbit twitched and buckled. She cradled it in her lap. With shaking hands, she pet its head, hoping to calm it.

“Please,” she whispered to the rabbit. Its heart stuttered, then stopped. Twill felt like a small piece of the world ended. It wasn’t fair. “I’m sorry. I'm so sorry.”

She wasn’t alone for long.

“Would you be quiet?” Fenna snapped, looming over her.

Twill tried to stifle her tears, tried to swallow back the broken sounds coming from her chest.

“What’s wrong with you? Get up,” Fenna continued, pulling at Twill’s arm. Her grip hurt. Twill winced, whimpered. Twill knew that Fenna was capable of being kind. She just was never kind to Twill.

Fenna tossed the carcass back to the woods. “Things die,” she said. “It’s just a rabbit. They’re supposed to get eaten, and that one isn’t even big enough for a morsel.”

She later dumped cold water over Twill, and told her that she shouldn’t be running around covered in blood. As if that was Twill’s choice.

That was when she forced her heart to sympathize with the falcon, instead of the rabbit. It took years before this change became a part of her. Even when she fit the role of predator, there were times when she felt she was nothing more than prey.


	2. Witness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three glimpses into Twill's life at age 10

After Twill turns ten, she outgrows Oren by three inches, to his extreme irritation. But she’s older by eleven months, so shouldn’t she be taller? Oren doesn’t care much for that argument, and says he’ll catch up to her soon.

She’s nearly as tall as Fenna, who is five years older than her, and while Oren is annoyed by Twill’s height, Fenna is furious. It doesn’t make sense–rarely do Fenna’s moods make sense–but she seems to blame Twill for the growth spurt.

It makes Fenna’s words harsher, louder, and her insults more frequent. Twill tries to ignore her, but it’s hard when Fenna snaps, “Don’t you have any shame?” when the tip of Twill’s tail swishes beyond the hem of her skirt. “You’re staring, stop it,” is another commonly used phrase, often when Twill isn’t looking at Fenna at all.

“I’m not,” Twill tries to explain, but her eyes are dark from edge to edge, and Fenna either doesn’t believe her or is just looking for another thing to harp on about.

Twill can’t help her height or her tail or her eyes. Fenna doesn’t care. Twill spends as much time outside as possible, though she’s not allowed into the woods or further into the village. So, she sticks to the small, clover-covered tract of land behind their hut. When her mother isn’t looking, she goes into the garden and pulls weeds. 

She finds a sense of peace when she’s alone, when no one is looking at her. Oren and Fenna have friends in the village; even Cambric has people he plays with, even though he’s only five. The twins are too young, but they toddle around behind Cambric and Oren, bright-eyed and doted upon by the adults around them.

Honestly, Twill doesn’t think adults have ever smiled at her. They smile at the twins, of course, but the twins are human. 

After she turns ten, she realizes that being alone is best.

—

A merchant caravan from Vasselheim is due within the next week. They always pass through during mid-spring, when the roads are free of snow and the wind is cool but not cold.

For the last three days, Twill’s followed a well-worn schedule. She wakes before dawn, when the world is still dark. Her father escorts her to the wise woman’s hut in silence. He doesn’t look at her, and sometimes that’s worse than Fenna’s sharp-eyed gaze. Twill knows better than to try and talk to him.

Matryona, the wise woman, lets Twill into her hut and feeds her a small breakfast of porridge and dried berries. They don’t talk much. Twill pulls a book from Matryona’s shelves and sits on the rug in front of the fireplace. After sunrise, Matryona leaves to go about her business in the village.

Twill is on her own most of the day, sequestered inside. She’s not allowed near the windows, either, but the books are windows enough into places and times she’ll never see herself.

When no one’s around, she’ll use mage hand to pull different books off the shelves, and put others back. No one else in the village can do magic, and even though she only knows the one spell, it makes everyone around her angry and uncomfortable. Twill takes a quiet pleasure in using her power. It makes her feel more settled within her own skin.

In the early evening, Matryona comes back. Sometimes, if she’s feeling talkative, she’ll ask what Twill learned today. Despite the fear of being mocked for speaking her thoughts, she replies to Matryona. After nightfall, her father returns and takes her home. 

This will happen again in the summer and then the fall. Whenever visitors come to Fyrkat, Twill is hidden away. She’s only questioned this system once, and her parents didn’t even argue with her. Instead, her father went silent, face like stone, and her mother glared. No words, only a hateful, baleful gaze.

At least when she’s stuck inside, no one looks at her like that—like how Fenna and her mother look at her. Like she’s wrong, from the inside out.

—

They’re not supposed to name the reindeer calves. Someday, they’ll be food and pelts, so it’s bad to give them names. The herders carve family symbols into the calves’ ears, to know which ones belong to while bloodline.

Twill wonders why her parents bothered naming her, if they treat her the same as the village does the calves. Like property, something to care for until grown and productive. She doesn’t have any sort of mark on her ear, but maybe they don’t want to claim her.

There’s a calf, smaller than the rest, and she calls him Duova. He has a patch of white fur right where his head and neck meet. 

He goes missing in the middle of the night, but the herders don’t seem too concerned. They say he was taken by wolves, but Twill knows enough to follow the tracks. No one wants Duova, even if he has the Hasilas’ mark on his ear. Her cousin Mavrres admits that the smaller calf likely wouldn’t survive the rest of the season. 

But Twill knows better. She can follow the tracks, the light hoof prints on soil and moss. Duova was running, but then slowed down, and the tracks get harder to follow. They weave and twist, lost among the towering pines.

Then, she hears it, the faint cry of a young reindeer in distress. She runs, and even though her legs are long for her age, she doesn’t feel like she goes fast enough.

It haunts her for years afterwards–the change that overtakes her when she sees Duova surrounded by wolves. 

“Duova!” she cries, and it’s the first and only time she’s ever called the calf by his name. 

Eyes turn to her, both fearful and predatory. She dashes forward, and finds a place at Duova’s side. His legs shake with fatigue. The wolves close in.

Unsure and unprepared, Twill follows the fiery feeling in her gut. She touches her pointer fingers and her thumbs together, and strange, dark words erupt from her mouth. A gout of fire springs from her palms. 

The wolves, caught in the flames, yelp and shriek and snarl. The air fills with the smell of burnt hair and flesh. They run, the whites of their eyes showing their panic. One wolf remains, dead, smoldering on the green grass.

Twill scoops Duova up in her arms. Oren isn’t strong enough to lift the calves yet, but their parents have him helping with the herd anyway. Twill isn’t suppose to be near the reindeer, maybe because everyone thinks they’ll be afraid of her, but they’re not. 

Duova rests his head against her shoulder and lets out a sigh. Twill runs the rest of the way back home. She never tells anyone about the wolves or the fire. Duova outlives the herders’ expectations, and Twill is determined to do the same.


	3. Cousin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twill’s favorite cousin Mavrres returns from herding reindeer

Twill doesn’t hear that the reindeer herders are back until the next day. She got home late last night with leaves in her hair and dirt on her skin. Overall, she didn’t accomplish much while out in the woods, but she did find a cool cavern tucked beneath an outcropping of rocks. Getting into the cave was a struggle, and getting out was even worse. It’s been a few years since her horns grew in, but she still forgets they exist sometimes. Cave openings aren’t horns-friendly.

When she wakes up, she regrets not taking the time last night to brush her hair or wash the muck from her skin. She won’t be allowed at the breakfast table until she’s clean, so she gets to work, brandishing a washcloth and a hairbrush.

Mavrres comes in when Twill is brushing mud out of the tuft of hair at the end of her tail.

They’re her favorite cousin by far. Mavrres’ younger siblings are basically copies of their parents—traditionalist and suspicious—but Mavrres is different. They remind Twill of a fox, both sharp and playful. 

Mavrres is Fyrkat’s best reindeer herder, and one of Twill’s favorite people. She doesn’t care much for summer, except that it’s when the herders come home.

“Hey, Twill,” they say, leaning on the door frame. “You gonna come to breakfast?”

“Mavrres!” Twill flings her brush away and basically tackles them with a hug. Most people would fall over or stagger when faced with Twill’s enthusiasm, but not Mavrres. They throw their arms around her and squeeze the air from her lungs.

“When did you get back?” Twill asks, voice muffled by Mavrres’ shirt.

“Early yesterday. Cambric said you were out,” they say. They lean back and rest their hands on Twill’s shoulders. For a moment, they just look at her, dark eyes scanning her face and hair and clothes. “You look a right mess.” There’s a fond smile on their face.

If anyone else had said it, it would’ve stung, but Twill laughs. “I went spelunking.”

“I can tell. Come on, let’s get you sorted, and then we’ll eat,” Mavrres says. They step into her room, and go to retrieve her hairbrush.

Twill sits on the floor beside her bed. Mavrres clambers up behind her and starts untangling her hair from her horns. Their hands are sure and steady. Twill closes her eyes and leans back against Mavrres’ knees. Something loosens in her chest—something she didn’t even realize was tight–and can’t keep the pleased smile from her face.


	4. Fort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twill and her brother Oren go back to the fort they built when they were children

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twill's 17 here, oren is 16

Oren and Fenna’s shouting match still rings in Twill’s ears. She was quiet throughout the whole thing, even though they were fighting about her. By the time Oren grabbed her arm and yanked her outside, she didn’t even know what they were saying. She didn’t need to. 

Fenna hates Twill. She always has. She wants the impossible from Twill: She wants Twill to stop existing, and if that’s not on the table, she wants to Twill to be as convenient as possible. But Twill’s existence is inconvenient and horrible to Fenna, so the whole thing keeps circling. As long as Twill has horns and a tail, she’s unacceptable.

Oren loves Twill. He doesn’t say so, but he does love her. He’s her brother and he doesn’t care what she looks like. When Fenna starts in on Twill, Oren’s always ready with a rebuttal. 

If it weren’t for Twill, Oren and Fenna would get along.

Twill’s skis follow the trail Oren carves into the new snowfall. He’s faster than she is, but her endurance and strength are better, so he’ll probably lead for another fifteen minutes before he asks for her to take over. When they started out, she offered to go first, but he shook his head and kept their destination a secret.

Well, he’s angry, so maybe he’ll lead for twenty minutes instead of fifteen. Their anger is similar—it fuels them from the inside out.

Twill isn’t angry right now. She’s tired. She’s exhausted. Her heart feels like its in a vice, like it always does when she’s home these days.

When Oren finally lets her take the lead, she doesn’t need to ask where they’re going. She takes them off the main trail and weaves through the forest. They know these trees well.

It’s been a couple years since they last traveled this way; Twill knows where to go all the same.

It was Oren’s idea to build a secret fort. Twill tagged along because she thought that’s what would make him happy. She didn’t realize he was doing it for her until after they were finished and he said something like, “Okay, now we can come here when Fenna is being mean to you.” They were ten and eleven at the time. Fenna was sixteen and had honed her words with deadly precision where Twill was concerned.

So, a secret fort in the woods. Oren marked the trees like how they marked reindeer calves’ ears, so they could always find their way back. The trees are taller now. The marks have faded.

Twill nearly laughs when she sees it again—it’s more a glorified lean—to than anything like a real fort. Still, it’s mostly whole and stable. The mid-afternoon sun slants through the bare trees, and paints the fort in pale shadows and yellow light. It looks safe, and Twill supposes that’s the whole point.

—

It’s easy to forget, but Twill is older than Oren. He’s always acted more like the elder sibling between the two of them; she can’t remember a time when it was otherwise. She’s really only a big sister to Cambric and the twins. Oren is different. Still, sometimes he does or says something that makes her feel older.

“Tell me a story,” he says, sticking their skis vertically in the snow beside the slouching lean-to.

Twill is in the process of building a fire. “What kind of story?” She lights some char cloth with her steel and quartz, then tucks it into a bundle of cattail fluff.

“You’re always reading something these days, when you aren’t out wandering. Matryona’s collection can’t all be boring histories, right?” He’s watching her, but she doesn’t mind.

“They aren’t boring,” Twill objects, and puffs a couple breaths into the kindling. She’s already dug a hole through the snow and set up some branches. She tucks the kindling down into the branches, using her body to shield the flames from the breeze. The flame catches, and she rearranges the branches as they begin to burn. 

Oren has a concerned look on his face. “Doesn’t that hurt?” he asks. “Your hands are literally in the fire.”

“Um, I’m fine?” She lifts her hands to show him her unblemished skin. “I wasn’t really touching the fire.” Okay, maybe she was, but she doesn’t leave her hands in the fire for too long. The heat can be uncomfortable, but she never waits until it hurts.

Oren squints at her hands and then at her face. “Is this a tiefling thing?”

“I guess?” Twill shrugs.

“If our house ever burns down, you better be coming in to save me,” he says.

Twill snorts. “Yeah, sure.” She doesn’t know why she’s being sarcastic—of course she’d save Oren.

They huddle close beneath the fort. Twill recalls a time when there was plenty of space, but both she and Oren have grown a lot since they were last here. Between height and muscle, it’s a wonder they can fit at all.

“So, that story,” Oren presses, and feeds a few more branches into the fire.

Twill tells him about a village far from here, near the mountains. The village was small and the people were kind, but they were kept enthralled by a dark spirit who lived in an old, desiccated tree. 

Year in and year out, the spirit demanded offerings of food, clothes, and other goods. Slowly, the village began to suffer as the spirit’s greed grew and it pressed for more. One day, the village leaders refused to give into the spirit’s demands. Left unsatisfied and furious, the spirit stole the village’s children from their beds and hid them within the tree.

The villagers were desperate, and heaped what little food they had left at the tree. Unmoved, the dark spirit taunted them, claiming it would eat the children first. When hope seemed lost, the villagers turned their pleas to the heavens. 

The gods answered their prayers in the form of a cleric, who battled against the dark spirit. Eventually, the cleric banished the spirit and one by one pulled each child out of the tree. With the villagers’ help, the cleric tore down the tree and burned its remains into ash. The spirit was never seen or heard from again.

Oren nods in approval when Twill finishes the tale. 

It’s nearly dark when they put their skis back on and pile snow over the fire.

Before they get back on the trail, Oren says, “You shouldn’t let Fenna speak to you like she does.”

“Nothing I say will help.” That feeling—heart in a vice—flares back to life. Twill doesn’t want to go home, but she doesn’t have a choice.

Oren frowns. “It’s not fair.”

Twill shrugs. She doesn’t know anything about fairness, at least where she’s concerned.


	5. Stalk; Stranger; Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stalk: Nevan follows Twill while she’s on a hunt, despite the fact that he has no clue who she is 
> 
> Stranger: Sequel to Stalk; Twill and Nevan meet for the first time 
> 
> Hunt: I combined and rewrote Stalk and Stranger because Reasons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [here's a picture of nevan, in case you're curious](https://solfell-dnd.tumblr.com/post/183929173822/kassasaurus-rex-sketch-commission-for-the-very)

**Stalk**

The first time Nevan sees Twill, he’s perched high up in a tree, minding his own business. (Said business is hiding from his teacher, who’s mad at him. He may or may not have eaten a few important components to a spell he was meant to learn. Sure, hiding in a tree isn’t going to do much once Taskell decides to find him and drag him back to camp, but still.)

Twill leisurely stalks a wounded boar, bloodied dagger in hand, and happens to pass beneath Nevan’s tree without noticing him. He watches her, starry-eyed, and utters, “Whoa.” Then, Nevan transforms into a nightingale, so he can follow her more easily.

He does his best to stay somewhere in her field of vision, not getting too close, but he wants her to notice him. He makes a very fetching nightingale. Also, he hasn’t seen that many people in his life but he’s definitely never seen anyone like her before. She looks dangerous and wild. Some of the best things in the world are dangerous and wild.

Also, she has horns. He wants to land on one, but that might get him killed.

It takes a little bit–she’s focused on her prey, like a good predator–but she does spot him. The serious expression on her face melts and she smiles at the strange bird. Nevan can’t speak, but he thinks, “Whoa.”

He doesn’t reveal himself until after the boar is dead. Twill nearly stabs him, startled by the sudden human at her side.

* * *

**Stranger**

The forest is lush with late spring greenness. Everything holds still for a few moments after Twill sinks her dagger into the boar’s heart.

Twill stands and catches her breath. She uses her sleeve to wipe the sweat from her brow. Her quarry lies still at her feet. It’s one of the bigger boars she’s ever hunted, and it’ll feed her family for a good long while. They can sell the leather and the bones will make for decent tools.

Relief mingles with her triumph. Going back home at the end of the day is easier when she doesn’t return empty-handed. She tries to clean the blood from her hands and dagger with the hem of her shirt. Fenna isn’t going to be happy with her regardless, but having dirty clothes is slightly more acceptable than having dirty skin.

The air pressure changes just to the left, like a small draft of wind, and she looks over– A boy is standing there, looking up at her with bright eyes. Twill lashes out with her dagger. She doesn’t connect, only catches the dark fabric of his cloak.

The boy yelps and stumbles back. His arms flail. “Whoa, hey, sorry,” he cries. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you! Please don’t stab me.”

Twill thrums with tension and her hand is tight around the hilt of her dagger. The boy is human, around her age, and has lighter skin and long, dark hair. He’s not from her clan, and since he’s not running away or throwing things at her, he’s probably not from one of Fyrkat’s sister villages. 

His hands are up, facing forward. There’s some dirt in the creases of his palms. The smile he offers is a bit awkward, but seems real enough. “Hi,” he says.

“Who are you?” Twill asks. 

“You know that bird that’s been following you? The nightingale? That was me,” he says. “Hi.”

Twill’s eyes narrow. Her doubt is profound, but she isn’t afraid. Even though he sneaked up on her, she doesn’t think he’s dangerous. Crazy, maybe, but not dangerous. Some of the tension leaves her, but she doesn’t lower her weapon. “You’re a bird?” she asks.

“Yeah, sometimes. You smiled at me,” he says. 

She scowls.

He swallows, but forges ahead. “I’m a druid. We can change our forms, you know? I’m not great at it, but my teacher can turn into some really interesting things.”

She did notice a nightingale following her for the last ten minutes or so, which was unusual and charming. Maybe he’s telling the truth… There’s hope in his expression. 

Something in her that wants to believe him. Before now, no one’s ever told her anything that she both did and did not want to believe. 

She sheathes her blade. “What do you want?”

The boy flounders for a moment. “I haven’t seen you before, so I wanted to say hi. Which I did. Twice. You did a good job with that boar there.”

Twill blinks. “Okay.”

“I’m Nevan,” he continues. “I live that way,” he points to the west, “with my teacher.”

“You’re not from one of the villages?”

Nevan makes a face, like he’s amused by the implication. “No. Are you?”

“I’m from Fyrkat,” she says.

“I’ve never been there. Your people must be glad to have a hunter living with them,” he says. 

Twill is confused.

Nevan looks to the dead boar at her feet, then back at her.

“Oh. I’m–I’m not a hunter,” she says. She’s uncomfortable with being seen, and she’s reminded of that fact right now. 

He shoots her a bemused look. “Yes, you are.”

Twill shuffles her feet. “I have to go,” she says under her breath and stoops down to heft the boar over her shoulders. She turns back, hoping Nevan’s left.

He’s just staring at her, eyes wide. Then, he blinks a couple times and seems to comprehend what she’s said. He droops. “Are you sure?”

She nods and gives him a last, short glance before heading off. Today was normal until now. She’d like to go back to normal.

“Wait, what’s your name?”

He doesn’t need to know her name. Why is he asking? She doesn’t meet his eyes. “Twill.”

“Twill,” he repeats. “I’ll see you around?”

She’d shrug if it weren’t for the dead weight of a boar on her shoulders. “Maybe.”

“I hope so.” There’s another shift in the air, and she glances up to see the tail end of a wolf bounding away into the trees.

For the next week, Twill goes out of her way to avoid the part of the forest where she met Nevan. It’s for the best. She does better on her own, right? Twill doesn’t want or need someone else, especially since Nevan will realize his mistake sooner rather than later. He’ll start to see her like everyone else does. 

She’s not willing burden another person with her existence.

* * *

**Hunt**

The temperature hovers right below freezing, even though it’s technically spring. That’s normal for Othanzia, at least as far as Nevan knows. It’ll be a few weeks more before the snows start to truly melt and the sun shines strong. This is his favorite time of the year, when the world slowly brightens.

The days are longer and the air smells different, even if most everything looks the same.

Taskell sent Nevan away earlier. “You are hovering, child. Go be useful elsewhere. Observe, take note of what you see, and don’t come back until you have something new to tell me,” he said, and pushed Nevan out of their yurt. “Don’t forget to replace those seeds you ate.”

Nevan shrugged and headed out into the forest. When he was younger, Taskell’s words might’ve stung, but he understands his teacher better now. Taskell is not a soft person, but he wants what’s best for Nevan. He wants to see Nevan grow strong and learn how to survive. Also, Taskell is a cranky old dwarf who needs his space and Nevan isn’t the best at knowing when to back off.

So, Nevan’s spent most of the morning wandering along the river, taking bracing sips of icy water whenever it suits him. He hasn’t seen anything new or interesting–some crows picking over a dead rabbit, and a set moose tracks. It’s almost midday, and he’s feeling a bit hungry. The seeds in his pockets are tempting, but Taskell will give him a look if he ends up eating them.

Maybe he should try to catch something. He’s walked this stretch of the river hundreds of times, in all the seasons. Fishing would be easy, especially with the water so low. Maybe he should go further downstream, or head the opposite direction? Or maybe a trip to the lake is in order, since it’s been a couple months since his last visit. He could hunt for something along the way.

While debating the merits of walking over three hours to see a frozen body of water he might fall through, he hears something rushing and rustling in the forest. It’s coming towards him–hooves struggling through soft snow, the rattle-crunch of trampled twigs.

He takes to his nightingale form and heads for the nearest tree. He lands on a low branch just as a boar bursts out from the underbrush. It skids to a stop at the edge of the water and sways for a moment before running north along the riverbank.

Nevan does what Taskell told him–he observes. There’s a gaping wound in the boar’s side, splashing dark blood on the snow. The winter has not been kind to this creature. It’s ribs trace stark bands along its sides, visible even beneath a bristly fur coat. It weaves and staggers as it runs. Both the injury and slow starvation play a role in the boar’s erratic path.

Nevan sees better as a bird, so he notices that the boar’s wound doesn’t look like an animal bite. 

A large shadow looms out from the thickest part of the treeline, following the blood trail.

“Whoa,” he thinks, heart stuttering in his chest.

There’s a tall woman stalking after the boar. She’s dark skinned and has a pair of ram-like horns, and a tail. He’s never seen a person with a tail before. He hasn’t seen many people at all, really, but he would’ve noticed if any of them had tails. Or horns! 

Thick leathers and furs cover her body and she carries a large, bloodied knife. Oh, a hunter. The confident, steady gait of her walk proves it–she’s a predator who knows exactly what she’s doing.

But there’s a slight hitch to her step. Blood stains her right pants leg. The boar got in at least one good attack, then, before it decided to run.

She looks dangerous and wild. Some of the best things in the world are dangerous and wild. Nevan follows her without thinking. Part of him wants to land on one of her horns, but that’s a horrible idea and he does is best to quash it.

The forest is mostly quiet, except for the hunter’s footfalls and the boar’s fumblings. It’s not long before she overtakes her quarry. It’s over quick–she grabs one of its tusks, pushes its head into the snow, then drives her knife deeper into the wound she already made. Brutal efficiency and beauty, like any good hunter. The boar struggles, one last throe, and then it slumps down into death.

The hunter stands, and wobbles, as if her wounded leg is about to crumple beneath her.

Nevan bursts out of his bird form, the beginnings of a healing spell on his lips. Before he can speak, he realizes he’s made a mistake. He landed too close. The hunter startles, and lashes out at him with her life. Nevan avoids the blade but tumbles backwards, hitting the snow with a soft wheeze.

“Whoa, hey, sorry,” he cries and clambers to his feet. He keeps his hands in front of him, palms out. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Please don’t stab me.”

She’s looking at him. At least he thinks she is. Her eyes are completely black, so she could be looking anywhere. But since she nearly stabbed him, he’s going to assume she’s focused on him. He tries to smile, but if feels a little shaky. He’s never been almost stabbed before. “Hi,” he says.

There’s a dark expression on her face, like she’s angry. “Who are you?” she asks, and pointedly doesn’t lower her knife.

“I was following you. I was a bird,” Nevan explains.

The darkness deepens into a scowl. “You’re a bird?”

He swallows, but forges ahead. “Yeah, sometimes. I’m a druid. We can change our forms, you know? I’m still learning, but my teacher can turn into some really interesting animals.”

Several emotions flash over her face, too quick to be understood. “What do you want?”

“I haven’t seen you before, so I wanted to say hi. Which I did already. You did a good job with that boar there.”

She blinks. “Okay.”

“I’m Nevan,” he continues. “I live that way,” he points back in the direction of camp, “with my teacher.”

“You’re not from one of the villages?”

Nevan tries not to laugh. Him, a villager? He can’t even imagine it. “No. Are you?”

“I’m from Fyrkat,” she says.

Fyrkat is the closest of the three nearby settlements. Nevan doesn’t know enough about it to form any real opinion on it. Though, if it’s full of people like this hunter, he might be interested in learning more. “I’ve never been there. Your people must be glad to have a hunter living with them,” he says.

“Oh. I’m–I’m not a hunter,” she says, and takes a step back. Her leg shakes; her face twists with pain.

“I can heal you,” Nevan offers. “I know a few spells.”

Her eyes narrow.

“It’ll be hard for you to bring your kill back home if you’re hurt,” he reasons. “I promise, I won’t make it worse. That’s actually not possible with these spells.”

She doesn’t do anything for a long moment. The river burbles softly in her silence. Then, she sheathes her knife. “Alright.”

Nevan edges closer to her, doing his best to telegraph his actions. He ends up kneeling at her feet, just to get a closer look at the wound. She’s doing everything she can to move away from him. That’s not going to work.

He puts his hand over her knee. “Um… don’t move so much. I haven’t actually done this on another person before.”

She goes completely still and looks down at him, her expression slowly growing more horrified. “What?” she asks, voice going high.

“I don’t want to mess up! If I miss, I can cast the spell again,” he explains. “I’d rather not use two spells when one will work. It’ll be fine.” He nudges at the torn edges of her pants leg. “Ouch, that looks like it hurts.” It’s a long, shallow gash on the outside of her thigh. Maybe she tried to turn way and dodge the boar? But wasn’t fast enough.

Nevan can almost picture it–the hunter striking the boar, the boar turning on her, getting in a glancing tusk attack before she dealt the near-mortal blow. He wishes he’d been there to see the whole hunt, not just the end.

He can feel her watching him. He flashes a smile at her before pressing his hands against the wound. The incantation comes easy and there’s a soft warmth in his hands that flows from him into her. Her skin knits itself back together; muscle tissue and veins weave into place. He pulls back and uses another small spell to fix the tear in her pants. She’s still covered in blood, but he can’t do much about that.

Nevan stands and wipes his hands off on his coat. “There, see? I said it’d be fine,” he says with a grin.

She takes a step back, eyes down. “I need to go,” she says.

His heart sinks. “Are you sure?”

She gestures at the boar.

“Right, you have to go home,” he says, mostly to himself. 

She leans down and hefts the beast over her shoulders. Nevan stares and blinks at her a few times before finding his words again. “What’s your name?”

The look she’s giving him is puzzled and wary. It doesn’t make sense–he helped her and she’s still suspicious. “Twill,” she says after a moment.

Her name is a word that he’s heard before, but he isn’t sure where. “Twill,” he repeats, and likes the way it tastes in his mouth. He smiles. “I’ll see you around, then?”

“Maybe.” She heads off towards her village.

Nevan watches until she disappears among the trees. “I hope so.”


	6. Nature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nevan’s mentor Taskell doesn’t like Twill, but she learns a few important lessons from him anyway

Nevan’s teacher is an old dwarf named Taskell. His hair and beard are snowy white and braided into firm, practical lines. Like Nevan, he wears simple clothes—leathers and furs that are functional before everything else. His eyes are grey and wild like churning clouds. The wrinkles in his skin are deeply set and speak of years of living in the wilderness. 

When Twill first meets Taskell, she takes an immediate liking to him. He’s probably the most powerful magic user she’s ever met. Despite his short stature, she feels small beside him. She likes feeling small sometimes.

Taskell doesn’t like Twill at all and does not deviate from that stance. She is a distraction and Nevan distracts himself enough on his own without her help. Taskell says as much whenever Twill pulls Nevan away from his studies to go exploring. But, even as he grumbles and gripes, he allows his pupil to go out into the world. 

On occasion, he lets Twill listen in on his lessons.

She doesn’t understand magic or druids, but she still learns from Taskell. The most important lessons aren’t about magic, anyway. Twill learns that nature is brutal and angry. In the back of her mind, she’s always known that nature isn’t soft, but Taskell frames this as good and normal. Nature relies on balance, and for beauty to exist, so must catastrophe. 

These lessons stick with her, but it takes a long time before she can internalize them. Eventually, that time comes and Twill accepts both the parts of her that are brutal and the parts that yearn for goodness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [how neat is that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXZt4-LTtHw)


	7. Flower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nevan’s theme song is “Strangers Like Me” and Twill is the #1 Stranger

Nevan has never been to Fyrkat. He’s seen it at a distance, but Taskell would throw a tantrum if he were to get anywhere near the village proper. It’s kinda irritating. Nevan is an adult—sort of—so shouldn’t he be allowed to go where he wants? His teacher’s hatred of everything civilization shouldn’t have any sway over what Nevan does. Still, there’s gotta be a reason for Taskell’s hatred. There’s always a reason for this sort of stuff, even if Nevan can’t see it at first.

So, he’s known Twill for about two months when he asks, “What’s Fyrkat like? Do you like living there?” She spends so much time away from home, so maybe she doesn’t. Then again, at the end of each day, it’s always the place she goes back to, so maybe she does?

They’re out picking mushrooms; Twill knows more about mushrooms than Nevan thought she would. He sometimes forgets that she knows the wild, too. She keeps surprising him like that—knowing things, often just through experience. There’s not a lick of formal education between the two of them, but who needs that when they both know which mushrooms will kill them which ones won’t?

Twill freezes, hands hovering over the ruffled cap of a morel. She looks over her shoulder at him. At least he thinks she’s looking a him—he’s still getting used to her eyes, her all-black irises and scleras. She’s pretty good at telegraphing where she’s looking, just by moving her head, but he’s got some doubts anyway. It’s not like he has much practice with other people, let alone a friend.

Her expression is wary, brow all thundery and grim.

He shouldn’t have asked, is what he decides then and there. Getting Twill to tell him anything important is… Well, it’s really difficult. Not that Twill is a difficult person. Because she’s not. Sure, she has a temper, but that’s never been directed at him. Sometimes she gets sad and quiet, but that doesn’t make her difficult, not by a long shot.

“It’s fine,” she says. There’s a colorlessness to her voice that he doesn’t like. “I mean, everyone else seems happy.”

Nevan blinks. Her answer is weird. “What do you mean? You don’t like it?”

Her face scrunches up, like she’s angry or hurt or confused and isn’t sure which one. She turns back to the mushrooms. “It’s just not… not for me.”

She’s saying more than one thing right now. Even if he doesn’t know what she’s saying, Nevan’s learned enough from her to know that something else is, in fact, being said. His heart aches a little bit, because this isn’t a good conversation, and it’s his fault. 

There’s a cluster of chamomile flowers nearby, peaking out from beneath a fallen log. The petals are tucked close together, not yet ready to bloom. Nevan channels a little bit of his magic into the flowers; the yellow petals unfurl, like eyes opening after a long sleep.

He plucks a few blooms and crouches beside Twill. When he first touches one of her horns, she pulls away, eyes narrow. 

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Decorating you,” he replies. “Don’t mind me.” He tries again, and this time she lets him weave a few flowers into the curve of her horns. It feels like her eyes track his every movement, but she could be staring over his shoulder for all he knows. 

He leans back when he’s done, and admires his handiwork. Twill is always beautiful, but the flowers add just a little something extra. Yellow is a good color on her. Nevan can’t help but grin. “You look great.”

She doesn’t believe him, but his belief is enough for them both. The sliver of tension that sits in her shoulders bleeds out, and she smiles back. 


	8. Husky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nevan and Twill hang out in a snow fort

After the first real snowfall, Twill and Nevan build a quinzhee in a small clearing, surrounded by dark pines. It’s a bit of a tight squeeze, fitting both of them inside the snow dome, but the shared warmth makes the shelter bearable.

Twill won’t admit it, but she likes that Nevan isn’t fussy about personal space, and that nothing about her appearance seems to bother him. He’s even considerate of her horns and tail, making sure she’s comfortable.

Nevan conjures a small light that floats along the quinzhee’s arched ceiling. It’s a warm light, like a miniature sun, but without the warmth.

She watches the ball of light drift overhead, oddly charmed by the way it reminds her of Nevan himself.

“Are you warm enough?” she wonders.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Taskell helped me make a new hat, and you’re pretty warm anyway.”

“Tiefling thing,” she says, trying to sound casual.

Nevan nods and smiles. “You get some cool benefits!”

It’s nice that he isn’t… awkward with this line of conversation, nice that he accepts every part of her race. His acceptance pales in comparison to her shame. So, she changes the subject. “Have you ever heard of skijoring?”

Nevan’s eyes squint and he stares into the middle distance, like he’s trying to remember if he’s familiar with the word. “Nope, and if I have, I’ve forgotten.”

“You’ve seen sled dogs,” she says, “and it’s like that, except there’s no sled. Just a person on their skis, tied to the dog’s harness.”

“Wait, really? Dogs pulling people on skis? Why? Those poor dogs!”

“The dog doesn’t do all the work, since the skier helps. Winters are boring, so we find ways to compete and entertain ourselves.”

“Is it fun?”

“I’ve never tried it.”

Nevan heaves a sigh. There’s a sour look on his face. “They didn’t let you, did they?”

Twill shifts, uncomfortable with the directness of his question. She shrugs. “No one ever directly told me ‘no,’ but I know better. If I tried, they would pretend they can’t hear or see me, or that there’s not enough supplies. There’s always a reason, fabricated or not.” Somehow, she keeps the bitterness out of her tone until the last sentence.

Nevan tilts over sideways, head thunk-ing against her arm. “I don’t understand it, and I know you’re mad about how things are. Even if you won’t say so. I’m mad about it, too. I don’t think me being angry is helpful.”

“It is,” Twill assures. “It makes me feel real.”

Nevan leans more heavily against her. “We should go skijoring. I prefer being a wolf, but if you need a dog, I can do that, too.”

It would work just as well with a wolf, but Twill’s curious how he looks as a dog. “Are you sure?” 

“Earlier you were telling me how perfect the snow is for skiing,” he points out. “There might not be a better time than now. It’ll be fun to try something new!” 

Twill doesn’t get a chance to reply before Nevan wild shapes into a dog. He looks radically different from his wolf form–all white and yellow-eyed. Now, he looks like one of the huskies that Twill often sees pulling sleds and skijorers. Dense black and white fur, bright blue eyes, and a tail that curls against his back. He barks once, as if testing what he sounds like, and even as a dog she can read his expression as startled. 

His voice is quieter when he’s a wolf, and not nearly as sharp. He nips at her pant leg, lets out a softer woof, and ducks out of the quinzhee. Twill laughs, and follows after him.


	9. Ravine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twill dreams about Nevan’s death

In her dreams, she goes back to the ravine. This doesn’t surprise her much. It’s been over three years, but she’d be able to find her way back there even now. Twill’s walked many miles in her life. She may not know where she’s going, but she knows where she’s been.

Her unconscious mind makes the trip for her, regardless. Sometimes having a good sense of direction is harrowing.

The air is sharp with spring, and the earth is damp from the previous day’s rain. Noontide sun dapples down past the pines. Clouds shift in the sky, gathering and dispersing over the mountains. Below, the ravine, with a churning river.

She takes a deep breath. Everything smells the same. Fresh, new, budding.

Sometimes her dreams drop her right into the middle of it, and she’s sliding down towards the river, and she’s digging through fallen rocks and dirt, and she finds Nevan’s broken body buried. She’s choked with her own disbelief; she’s dying right along with him.

Sometimes she’s at the beginning–watching Nevan stroll along the edge of the ravine. His feet are precise, like an acrobat’s. The breeze makes his dark hair look like birds’ wings. She walks parallel to him, a few feet away, and he laughs at her fear of heights. In her hands is the glaive she left in the Underdark. She uses it like a walking stick.

Sometimes she knows exactly when the cliff is going to give way, and she’s able to reach out and snag the hood of Nevan’s cloak, saving him from the fall. Those are the worst dreams, the ones where she diverts the past and makes a different, brighter future. It’s hard to fall asleep afterwards.


	10. Beads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twill leaves home

There’s still blood on her hands when she decides to leave. She shoves her things into a bag. Her parents are in the kitchen; the cadence of their conversation carries through the cabin’s thin walls. She wishes she could blot out the sound of their voices.

> “Nevan is dead,” she told them, voice wooden. 
> 
> “What happened?” her mother asked. Her eyes were sharp, looking Twill up and down. Her real question was, What did you do? 
> 
> “There was a rock slide.” Her voice sounded strange in her own head, as if another person was imitating her.
> 
> “These things happen,” her mother said. “It’s not good to wander without a group.”
> 
> What group would want to wander with me? Twill wondered.
> 
> Her father didn’t speak. His eyes followed her when she backed out of the kitchen.

Cambric stands at the threshold of the room Twill shares with Fenna and the twins. Dim light filters in from the hallway behind him; he’s more shadow than solid person right now.

The sun must be down. Twill doesn’t remember seeing it set, but that’s the only reason for why the room’s so dark. 

Cambric’s hands twist together. “Twill, what’s going on?” he asks, voice high and soft. “You said you’d be back before dinner.”

She shakes her head. The words she might say catch in her throat.

Her brother hesitates. He looks over his shoulder, then back at her. She continues packing, shoulders tight, ribs crushing inwards. Cambric edges closer and leans against her arm. “Twill.”

“Here,” she says, and presses her beaded necklaces into his hands. “Give them to someone who is important to you.”

Cambric stares down at the strings of beads. One is made up almost entirely of bone shard beads–she made that one herself–and the other is made from a rainbow of different-colored beads. The center bead is a large carnelian, framed by smokey quartz and green glass. She loves those necklaces. She loves Cambric more.

His frown is confused and feeble. “You’re important to me.”

“I’m leaving,” she chokes out. Her voice fractures somewhere in the middle, but she keeps speaking. “I won’t be back.”

It’s a terrible thing to say to anyone, let alone her brother. He’s barely fifteen years old. Twill remembers being fifteen–it wasn’t that long ago. She wouldn’t have wanted to hear something like this then. She wouldn’t want to hear something like this now. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath. Gods, he looks so young. In a small voice, he asks, “You’ll be safe, right?” He’s staring up at her now, and his expression is torn between pleading and resignation. 

“I’ll try.” She pushes past him, making for the door.


	11. Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stopping in a Field on a Frozen Midnight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one takes place during the three years when twill was a semi-feral tiefling living in the woods

Outside of the forest, the world goes still at night. Everything is frozen, a softly held breath beneath the moonlight. 

Twill makes her way across an open field. She faces the east; the place she called home is westward and she will not go back. There’s a hard layer of ice over the snow, and she would flounder if it weren’t for her snowshoes. Even so, she crunches through the icy top layer while she walks. The sound of her steps should echo out into the open, but instead every noise is muffled and absorbed.

When she’s made it halfway through the field, she stops. She takes a deep breath and it stings enough to make her want to cough, but she doesn’t. She holds her breath and mimics everything around her. Reality slips into simplistic shapes; Twill is a little distant from herself. The cold tethers her here, but her mind drifts.

Eyes slide shut. Exhale. Warmth and vapor leave her lungs. Inhale, not so deep to hurt this time. The hush envelops her, shifts against her exposed skin, distant and cloying at the same time. Eyes open. A monochromatic snowscape looks back.

She tugs off her mittens and flexes her fingers. The blood in her veins moves slow. Her anger calms and sinks beneath the earth. It lays dormant, as if waiting for spring.

Above, the sky is completely clear. Stars shine forth, pinpricks of light in a dark cloth. The moon is full and heavy. Twill holds up a hand, palm flat and fingers spread, against the sky. She frames the moon in the sloping curve of her index finger and thumb; her ring finger sits just below a reddish star. Her little finger leans against the arc of a constellation. She imagines the cold is starlight itself touching her palm. 

Vertigo pulls at Twill with a sharp, sudden motion. She nearly falls backwards, but the sensation passes and she stares down at the snow. When she is ready to look back up, she realizes time has skipped past, through her. The moon rolls downward, moving into the second half of the night. Dawn is hours away, but it’s not yet late enough to be early. Twill should sleep. Already, the dying embers spark and rekindle—her wrath becomes real again.

She is herself once more. She keeps moving.


	12. South

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As she travels, Twill leaves pieces of her past in her wake

She sold her skis at the first settlement she encounters after leaving the timberlands. The shop keep was excited; he said he hadn’t seen such finely-made skis in a long time. Twill wasn’t sure if he paid her well, but she didn’t haggle. She took her handful of silvers and moved on to the next village. 

When she left Fyrkat, she gave her beaded necklaces to Cambric. Someday, a nice human someone will brighten his heart and they will wear Twill’s beads better than Twill ever has. 

She gifted her two silver brooches to Hjordis, the woman next door, who raised three children on her own. It didn’t matter much to Twill whether or not Hjordis kept or sold the brooches—Hjordis was kind, and never looked at Twill strangely. Hopefully the brooches would help her in some way or another.

Like a snake leaving scales in its wake, Twill’s journey south was an exercise in shedding parts of her past. She thought it might make her feel lighter, newer, and more free. It just made her feel hollow, but hollow was better than most feelings.

She didn’t deserve these trinkets. It was a fact ingrained into her—she was never part of her family. If anything, she was just visiting and had long outworn her welcome. 


	13. Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A nice lady gets cozy with Twill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not adding any sort of changes to the relationships tags bc this was a fun one-off in twill's life, not an actual thing

She sits at the corner table in the back of the tavern. The nearby tables are empty, and a few people have approached to sit at them. Then they see Twill and find somewhere else to sit. 

The village is mostly humans, but there are a handful of dwarves, too. No tieflings, but Twill isn’t surprised. It’s a small village and she’s not exactly looking for people who look like her.

Someone sits at her table, startling Twill out of her thoughts. Twill does a double take, unsure if what she’s seeing is real–an elven woman who looks around her own age, but who knows? She’s fair-haired, with sharp features, pale eyes, and a gentle smile. She has a mug of ale in each hand.

“I love your freckles,” the elf woman says.

Twill blinks, and her face gets hot. “I, um, don’t have freckles?” She uses her sleeve to rub at her face. “It’s probably dirt. I was out most of the day.” Hopefully it’s dirt, but she might have some acne. Honestly, Twill hasn’t looked in a mirror in a few days.

There really isn’t a need for mirrors. She spends her days lifting heavy objects on farms in the middle of nowhere for likely substandard wages. Mirrors are unimportant.

The woman laughs, and her smile doesn’t dim for a single moment. Her whole face is bright and friendly and Twill feels a bit bad for being what she is.

“I’m sorry,” Twill says. “I’m not really fit for company.”

“Don’t be. You’re not the only rough type in this place.”

“W-What’s your name?” Twill asks.

“Kerensa.”

“I’m Twill.”

Kerensa passes Twill one of her ales. “Here, for you. Twill.” She repeats her name like she’s testing it on her tongue.

“Really?”

Kerensa laughs again. “I wasn’t going to drink both. It’s not yet the weekend.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Twill takes a deep drink. The ale is weak, but it settles in her stomach well enough. “I can pay you back?”

“It was a gift.” Kerensa’s smile borders on tender, and Twill isn’t sure how to respond to that. “I haven’t seen you around here before.”

“I’m not from the area.”

“I know. Neither am I,” she replies.

They chat for a bit, exchanging pleasantries. Kerensa says she’s from some city in the far east, and Twill talks about being from even further north. Kerensa normally attends some sort of school in the south, but is traveling for the sake of it. Twill understands wanderlust, if nothing else, and they swap stories of strange and beautiful things they’ve seen. 

When the evening grows late and the tavern begins to empty, Kerensa gives Twill a searching look. Then, with slow movements, she reaches out to touch Twill’s wrist. Her fingers are soft and she turns Twill’s hand over so she can trace the lines on her palm. 

A shiver runs through Twill. She is suddenly very aware of every inch of herself, from her horns to her toes to her tail. It’s a good feeling, even if its a scary one.

“Would you like to come back to my room?” Kerensa wonders. Her voice is gentle, but there’s something fiery in her eyes. 

Twill hasn’t had much practice at social interactions in the last couple years, but she isn’t stupid. She knows what Kerensa is asking. Her fingers curl inward, catching Kerensa’s hand in hers. “I haven’t,” she starts, and shakes her head. “I’m not,” she tries again and makes a face. “I’d like to, but I don’t want to disappoint you.”

Kerensa’s hand pulls free, and she touches Twill’s chin, lifting her face. She leans in close and brushes their lips together. “You won’t,” Kerensa says, breathy.

Twill doesn’t say anything, just bridges the small gap between their lips. Kerensa sighs into her mouth, and Twill can’t help but smile.


	14. Forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twill works on that emotional growth and healing thing; cries a bit over Nevan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wrote this one almost immediately after RP between twill and union; it was the first time she ever told anyone about the circumstances of her leaving home, as well as the first time she's talked about nevan since his death
> 
> ultimately it was a big turning point for twill, both in her growth as a person and in her friendship with union

Union leaves; his parting smile is genuine and warm. Much like how he is as a person. Twill stares at the closed door, listens to his retreating footsteps. She’s told him more than she’s told anyone ever, and she’s told it poorly. It was half a story, and she doesn’t understand why she can’t tell the whole thing. She couldn’t even say Nevan’s name. It wasn’t her fault when he died, yet she can’t say his name.

Still, Union listened and didn’t press for more. Twill’s heart twists itself into knots. 

It was one thing—knowing that she took herself out the equation, knowing that it was best for everyone involved when she left home. It was something else to say it out loud. To tell someone she trusted. It made the last three years seem more real than they’ve ever been.

Twill feels like she’s shaking off the last remnants of a dream. Her head is a tangled mess, all climbing ivy and thorny vines. Her eyes burn and sting. She blinks back tears, and doesn’t know why. 

Her hand presses against the center of her chest. Her sternum and ribs push back with each breath. Anger is so easy, and normally she clings to it like driftwood in a wide ocean. Grief is heavy. It threatens to pull her down. 

Maybe, for other people, the death of one person isn’t earth-shattering. Maybe it’s normal for other people to carry on, bearing open wounds. Twill doesn’t think she’s ever been normal or like other people. In fact, she’s spent her whole life being told she wasn’t.

Nevan is dead. It’s been over three years since he died. Yet, Twill feels his presence like a phantom limb. And it hurts. She lets it hurt. Tears tumble down, and she presses her forehead against her knees. She cries for the thousandth time over him, and the person he could’ve become, and the person she would’ve been at his side. 

The tears ebb, as they always do, and she breathes easier. A thought strikes, lightning fast and just as bright—Nevan wouldn’t want her to keep crying over him. He would want only good things for her. 

Nevan didn’t care that she was different; he liked her because if her differences. Union and the others don’t seem to care much, either. That’s important. Maybe that’s more important than all the things she’s scared of. Despite everything, she thinks she has a shot at being someone worthwhile, or at least someone worthy of the friends she has now.


	15. Letter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The immediate aftermath of Yen leaving

Twill’s insides are still shaking from the fight in the tomb. It wasn’t a comfortable fight, or an easy one. Her rage is slow to fade; adrenaline and fear mix into a sick cocktail that leaves her feeling slightly misaligned from herself. It’s so strange, because she’s used to feeling mighty and invigorated after winning a fight. But today, for some reason, the triumph rings out discordant. 

And then the party returns to Ank’Harel, and Yen is gone. A letter remains. After reading it twice, she returns to her room. She paces for a handful of steps, then moves to stare out the window. The city moves to a rhythm she can’t follow.

The bed is a comfort; she presses her face into her pillow and gets the urge to scream, but doesn’t. Tears press at the back of her eyes and her throat hurts.

It’s hard to believe, both that Yen is gone, and the words he wrote. She doesn’t feel like she’s amazing, or any of the other words Yen ascribed to her. It’s startling, the reminder that a person could look at her and see something good. Nevan did, and apparently Yen does, too. 

It dawns on her: The people who matter most are the ones who will see the best in her. She may not agree with them or see what they see, but maybe her disbelief isn’t enough proof. Maybe her perspective on herself isn’t the whole truth.

Twill admires Yen’s fire—both literal and figurative—and he’s only just left, but already she misses the warmth. She’s not used to people leaving and doesn’t think she ever will be, but at least Yen is alive. Leaving was his decision, and she’ll come to terms with that even if she doesn’t understand. It hurts, but she can take it.

She looks forward to the day when she can test her strength against his.


	16. Oak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our Goddess is an Awesome Goddess

Twill turns the pendant over in her hands. It might be her imagination, but it feels warm to the touch. She can scarcely even believe that it’s hers now, that she spoke with a goddess, that she wasn’t shunned.

Then again, she’s never been shunned by nature.

What she told Melora was true—she loves her friends, but there are times when she misses being alone. The thing about nature is that it’s never demanded anything of her. It’s never had expectations or opinions. When she lived alone in the woods, she was allowed to be messy and chaotic and sad and angry, and there were no repercussions. 

Now, it feels like there are terrible repercussions for everything she does. Or doesn’t do. 

But the amulet she now wears is a shield against her deepest fears. If someone as powerful and knowing as a goddess can listen and hear Twill, then maybe she has more agency than she thought she did. Maybe she isn’t tied to her family’s history as tightly as she imagined.

Twill has never lacked physical strength. Perhaps soon she’ll have spiritual strength to match. And with that strength she’ll be better, do better, and help in ways she wasn’t able to before.


	17. Oceanic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twill likes being on the open ocean

It’s not like the lake beyond the trees, or the river running through her old village, but the ocean still finds a way to comfort Twill. The endlessness of the water and sky reminds her of days snowshoeing across white landscapes, following an unknown rhythm towards something better.

The ship rocks and creaks and moves with the winds. Twill can relate to that.

The ocean and the tundra are similar in that sense—they both make her feel like she’s moving forward.

But where the snow and ice were unforgiving and caught inside her soul like a cocklebur, the ocean soothes away the rough edges in her mind.

The problems are still there. The doubts, the fears, the unyielding sensation that she will fail herself and her friends—sea salt air can’t erase those things. But the tightness in her chest is eased. Her smiles feel real again, and she means them. And sure, she doesn’t know what will happen in the next few weeks—the open ocean is dangerous–but for now, she will take what comfort she can.


	18. Strip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strip poker is apparently better than therapy for someone like Twill

The skin on her cheeks and jaw have gone a bit numb from the alcohol; if she keeps going she’s going to regret it in the morning. Twill takes another long sip from her cup and grins to herself. Future-Twill can just ask Union for hangover help later. Now-Twill is warm and pleased and also something that might be embarrassment but it’s a good feeling.

She peeks at the cards in her hand. They’re terrible. “I bet my tunic and my undershirt,” she announces to the table. There are a few speculative looks cast her direction. She smiles whenever she meets someone’s gaze. Maybe they don’t know she’s looking at them–her black scleras and irises make eye contact a tenuous thing–but she hopes the smiles help.

Time slips past, like it does when alcohol is involved. Twill’s down to the lingerie that Meri gifted her—the black lace set, not the red one—and there are several naked people nearby.

Morjan fidgets, and there’s a warning going off at the back of Twill’s head but she can’t focus on it because there are naked people in the room. Honestly, Twill can’t help but be curious about what’s going on beneath Morjan’s cloak. Everyone at the table has scars, why is Morjan hiding theirs? 

Union is winning by a landslide.

She’s struggling not to look at Cade. She looked and now can’t stop, but then there’s Sylus and Amias all naked, too. Twill can feel the heat in her face, surfacing beneath the drunken numbness.

She feels eyes on her. She rolls her shoulders back and she preens under the attention.

Part of her wants to run away and hide. Who she was when she left home surfaces just now, and it takes Twill a moment to quash down her past. Nineteen years old, her best friend dead, ignored or reviled by most of her village. Grief scorched a terrible line through her, and at her core she was nothing but fire. If she could ignite her self and her life, she would have. And then she left, and wanted nothing more than to never be seen again.

She doesn’t mind when people look at her now. A giddy feeling rises up in her–and she realizes that she likes it when people look, likes that she is powerful and that others can see that. More importantly, she likes the people here, her friends, and she trusts them with nearly everything, including this. It’s been over two years since she left home and she is different and is allowed to be different than she was.

The anger smolders, still. She thinks it might always be like that. What is the calm without the storm? But she is not tied to the expectations or shame her family forced on her. She’s allowed to be more than her grief. She is allowed to believe that she is just as beautiful as the people around her.

Tonight, that seems more true than ever.


	19. Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the high seas, Twill dreams about the first time she cast Flame Blade

Twill falls asleep, the acrid taste of rum still burning her tongue. She dreams. Shadows lick at the corners of her vision, but she brushes them away with a quick swipe of her hands. Everything rocks back and forth, as if carried on a lurching wave.

The room is dark, and Twill feels the tops of her horns scrape against the ceiling’s beams. Despite the low light, she can make out a table with three chairs, a bookcase as tall as she is, and a newly woven rug. There’s a single window, but it’s black and doesn’t reflect anything back.

Twill knows this room. On the bookshelf is every book she’s ever read. Her mother made the table and chairs, and her father wove the rug. She can’t look around, but she knows there’s a door behind her, and a short hallway to her left that leads to the wise woman’s bedroom. Matryona isn’t here right now. The hearth beside the bookcase is cold, without a single glowing ember.

Normally, the window looks out onto the edge of the village—old trees along the river, and then the plains where the reindeer gather on their migrations.

The room continues to rock, but the furniture doesn’t shift. Twill feels like she’s about to stumble, but never does. Her feet are rooted into the worn floorboards.

When she was last in this room, Twill was a teenager. The room was dark then, like it is now. Outside there were sounds of merriment and cheer—the neighboring villages were visiting Fyrkat for the harvest festival.

Twill has read about princesses in towers and monsters in labyrinths. She can’t relate to either, even though she’s always stuck in this room when there are visitors. She wishes she were noble or horrid, instead of being what she is, hanging in a limbo of harsh ambivalence.

No one is willing to trap her forever, or harm her, but they don’t want her to be seen. The people from other villages will see her for what she is—an ill omen. A black mark against Fyrkat.

The dream takes her from the room—with one heave of movement, Twill is stumbling away from the festivities. She didn’t mean to be spotted. She was trying to be careful. She just wanted a look—booths dot the small square at the center of the village, and there’s a huge bonfire. People dance and drink and laugh. But then a trio of human boys see her. She doesn’t recognize them. They see her and their eyes go wide with hatred and fear, and she tries to run. They follow.

Something soft hits her back. She turns. It’s a clod of dirt. The human boys wear vicious snarls, and one of them cheers at hitting his mark. Twill takes a step backwards. Another volley comes her way. 

Dirt leaves bruise-like patterns on her tunic, and then there’s a sharp, crackling pain. The world shifts, just a little bit, and she realizes that one of the boys threw a rock at her. The gash in her forehead bleeds, and she sways; like wolves, the boys sense her stupor and close in. Her vision blurs.

Anger sears through her, and the words dripping from her lips are in a language she knows, but has never heard before. The words taste sickly sweet. In her hand is a curved blade, but it’s made of fire, not iron. It creates a corona of light, smaller than the bonfire at the village center, but bright in the gloom.

She strikes out at the nearest boy, no finesse, just fear and fury. The fire sears a jagged line across his chest, hip to shoulder. The rocks in his hands tumble to the ground and he screams. The others scream, too, and Twill can’t do anything but breathe. The scent of scorched hair and flesh fills her nose.

Her hand loosens, and the blade gutters out like a candle in a storm.

A giddy, prideful feeling rises up in her.

The feeling grows and then shivers into nothing. Her dream skips forward through time. Twill is back in the room, sitting on the rug. Matryona stands at the table. Her hands are on the back of a chair, and she leans her weight onto it. She isn’t looking at Twill, but that’s normal.

Matryona is old, and has always been old in Twill’s eyes. Her hair is sleek and white. Her skin is dark like the bitter tea she brews for stomach ailments. When she glances up, her pale blue eyes seem to see through Twill.

The dream doesn’t let this conversation happen—the one where Twill says she didn’t want to hurt that boy, not really, and she promises to stay out of sight from here on out, promises that only her family will ever see her again. 

Matryona accepts those promises and doesn’t offer an alternative. It would have been so much worse had the boy died. Twill has never admitted it aloud, but she wishes he died. She wishes she killed him, and his friends.

She wakes in the morning, sour flavor in her mouth. She isn’t going to talk about what was bothering her last night. The fear and irritation she felt gets stowed in the back of her brain, where it can’t dim her thoughts. She’s going to roll out of her hammock and eat breakfast and help the sailors. She’s going to breathe the sea air and not think about her disorienting dreams. 

She’s going to be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i know mephisopheles bloodline tieflings don't get flame blade until 5th level. i recognize the game designers have made a decision but given it's a stupid-ass decision i've elected to ignore it.


	20. Rage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A self-indulgent mediation on Twill’s battle rage

No two fights are the same. The only thing that remains constant is a current of rage that drives her into the fray. 

That anger itself changes, though, from one battle to the next. Her fury is multifoliate, adaptable, and never once predictable. Maybe from the outside it looks the same, but it doesn’t feel the same. Each time she comes back to herself after a fight, she is a different being. She’s still Twill—she can’t be anything else—but like how the wind pulls autumn leaves from tree branches, she is altered. 

One fight, Twill’s heart leaps and sings, and her teeth flash in vicious joy. Another fight, the edges of her vision darken, and the taste of blood in her mouth stirs in her a craving for more. Sometimes, she fights and feels as if she’s outside herself, floating on the wave of anger instead of immersed in it.

Sometimes, her thoughts are crystalline and she surveys the whole battlefield, like some military general. And then there are times when the words in her head are red smears against a black backdrop.

Anger is transformative: She is the surging river, heaving with snow melt. She is the rock slide, the fall, the crush. She is the squall on the edge of a thunderstorm, forceful and fast. She is the wildfire, sweeping through, leaving opportunity behind. She is the blinding white blizzard, spiking with ice and cold. She is the relentless march of lava, confronting obstacles with a scorching touch. She is her anger, and that makes her powerful.

Then the danger passes. The fury abates. She’s just Twill, only Twill. 

There’s power in that, too. 


	21. Poisonous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fortune teller’s words ring true, and Twill is worried

Maybe Cade is right about this, too. Maybe Twill is stupid for buying into what the fortune teller said. Still, she can’t ignore what she was told, about the fire in her blood and about running. 

One look at her, though, and any insightful person could see those things. Of course she’s full of fire, she’s a tiefling. Of course she’s running, she always looks out of place. She doesn’t know how to be anything else.

(The fortune teller doesn’t know about her anger, about that fire, the one that lets her burn through her enemies. He doesn’t know about the people she’s scorched, just because they dared to hurt her.)

It’s that last card that gives her pause; it’s the thing that makes her doubt. A card about a false, twisted love, based on deception—it makes her wonder. She’s never really been in a romantic relationship before—just flings here and there—but she wonders what might happen if she ever does fall in love.

She wonders if the fire in her blood will destroy something good. She wonders if her anger might frighten away the people she cares about. Maybe she is too much and will always be too much, but that can’t be right, can it?

Twill is inclined towards belief. She’s always been like this—whether it’s about the gods, or about some far-fetched story, or about a simple fortune given by a blind dragonborn with a deck of cards. She doesn’t need to understand something in order to believe it. What she knows of the world is very small, and there is wisdom in the unknown. 

In her gut, she knows the fortune teller spoke true. The seed of doubt is overtaken by the visceral feeling that her questions will be answered. 

It’s not a good feeling. The possibilities of what the cards could mean sink deep inside her, stinging like poison. 


	22. Murky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A possible worst case scenario for Twill; me playing around with what could have been

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a short exercise in weirdness, just to see what could've happened if twill never left the vesper timberlands

In another world, Twill never leaves the timberlands. 

She never sees another town or city. She does not meet or speak with other people. The broken edges of her heart are never given a chance to align, and she does not begin to heal. 

The shades in her dreams creep closer. Months pass. Years pass. Shadows seep in through the leaky roof of her mind. She begins to see them while awake. She is aware that this is wrong, but doesn’t know how to fix it. The shadows feed on her terror and become corporeal, clinging to her skin, following her step. She cannot fight them.

In another world, Twill is eaten up by darkness and fire. Her soul is seared and changed and she becomes a feral creature. The anger never abates, not while she still breathes, and she no longer sleeps. Her eyes never close; her mouth stays in a viscous grimace. In another world, Twill is the monster that lurks in the wild. She kills the forest; a disease spreads, centered in her fractured chest. 

A band of intrepid adventurers find her and the words she says to them are in a language no living thing has ever spoken. There is a fight. Maybe she dies, or maybe she drags their bones into her nest, adorns the place with sinew and hair. 

At night she waits, staring into the murk. Her talons and teeth are painted with blood. She does not understand what she’s waiting for, and that is the only thing she has in common with the person she used to be.


	23. Paper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An attempt to write home

In the back of her head, Twill begins composing a letter to her father.

At first, she doesn’t get very far. There’s a general greeting, “Dear Father, It’s Twill. I’m still alive,” and then she wants to say something like, “My friends and I think the Senthil family is connected with devils. Do you know anything about that?” but even that feels so abrupt. 

She hasn’t spoken to her father in a long time. Even before she left home, they didn’t spend that much time together. Sure, he taught her how to sew—when her horns grew in, she had to modify all her shirt collars—and he occasionally indulged her with a few stories of his traveling days. Still, she honestly doesn’t know how to start a conversation with him, and it feels too late to learn. 

Maybe she should throw out decorum and ask, “Hey, why didn’t you mention the fiend-worshiping fucks on your side of the family? How about you mention it now.” But that line of questioning is making her angry, so she takes a somewhat calming breath and starts a letter to Oren and Cambric instead.

It starts off the same, “It’s Twill. Hello. I’m not dead. I sort of share a house with some friends in Vasselheim. So, if you want to write back, that’s where you should send any letters. How are you both? How is everyone else? Sorry I didn’t write before now.”

It’s a stupid letter. Twill hates it. She’s not going to get any important information out of her brothers. They aren’t going to know anything more about the Senthils than she does, and she doesn’t want to hear about how everything back home is the same.

It might actually be worse to hear that things _aren’t_ the same. 

She switches back to her father’s letter. It’s good that she’s writing mental notes, otherwise the paper would probably be on fire now. How she’d manage that is a mystery, but it sounds possible.

When she gets to physically writing the damned thing, she tries to give the letter a calm, impartial tone. She isn’t sure how successful she is, but there is no spilled ink, broken quills, or burned paper. The whole process makes her uncomfortable, and she has to eat a bunch of bread afterwards to feel better.


	24. Museum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twill wants a lot of things she can’t have, but she didn’t realize a career in academia was one of them

A quiet yearning lives within Twill. It’s always been there, hiding somewhere between her heart and ribs. It is a multifaceted want. Sometimes it weighs heavy on her. Other times, it doesn’t move or speak, and she is tricked into thinking that she doesn’t really want or need anything at all.

Listening to the aasimar museum worker ramble on about his discoveries–about unveiled history, and the ever-present unknown, and the chipping away at mysteries—Twill can see that he loves his work. He loves the collection under his care, and the smile on his face sparks a sharp feeling in Twill’s chest. 

Until now, the yearning was familiar, and even though its weight changed depending on the day, the contents have always been the same:

She wants silence, both furious and contemplative. She wants to breathe, and not feel like the very movement of her lungs expanding takes up more room than she is allotted. She wants to tear away the fears that hang over her like a funeral cloth. She wants her words to come easily and hit accurately. She wants love, a hand tucked into hers, an honest smile, a calm acceptance of every jagged piece of herself. She wants to give that, too. She wants to know if she is wanted, and where, and when, and how.

She knows these things about herself.

Yet, with that jolt in her chest, another wish joins the others. There is an echo, one that answers to what the aasimar is saying. It staggers her. 

If she were another person, she could see herself leave the city and move on to a life radically different from her own. In her mind’s eye, she watches herself, lit by candlelight. She pours over old tomes, piecing together scattered fragments of history. Her notes are neat and clean. 

She sees herself unearthing artifacts in a dark cavern. Her hands are gentle and steady and sure. There are imprints of others, fellow explorers and academics, helping and collaborating as she rebuilds things that were lost. She steps forward, casting light wherever she goes. It’s just a dream, but one that costs her all the same.

Yes, she loves books and loves learning and always has. But she wasn’t meant for that, was she? Last night, she had to scrub dried blood out from under her fingernails. Her motions were automatic, perfunctory, and revealing. Twill, bloodstained and battle-ready, is a story that she actually lives. She can’t be anyone else, and that’s fine.

Luckily, in this reality, she is strong enough to bear the weight of want. 


	25. Defeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting thrashed in front of an audience can be a great learning experience!

It’s fairly early on in the fight that the small, rational voice at the back of Twill’s head speaks up. It tells her that she isn’t going to win this fight. The bigger, angrier voice in her head responds to that with a scream. 

So, she keeps fighting because that’s what she does. That’s what she’s done her whole life. She doesn’t know another option, not when fire ripples through her and there’s blood in her teeth.

And maybe there’s a part of her that relishes the idea of being beaten, despite everything.

Maybe she needs to be pushed into the earth and forced to stop. She isn’t invincible, and the coliseum is a fairly safe place for that reminder. It’ll be a painful lesson, like it always is, but it’s one she needs.


	26. Youth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time flows strangely and Twill has questions after a battle goes a bit pear-shaped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aka union sets a building on fire
> 
> it's a shitty day

Sometimes, Twill forgets how young she is. The time she spent alone stretches and warps, refusing to untangle into something understandable. Three years feels like five, or more, and that doesn’t make any sense. Everything within her went stagnant after she left home. She barely grew, but around her the world flourished and faded with the seasons. It should be easy to track time by those seasons, but the stillness that lived inside her then is loud and drowns out logic and order.

Today, her youth is cast in stark relief against her situation. The thrill of battle cools in her blood, and worry for her friends takes its place.

She goes over her skin with a washcloth, just a few cursory swipes to remove the worst of the soot and ash. Then she’s back at Union’s side, wrapping him up in her arms. Maybe she’s strong enough to help calm his shaking hands.

There are so many words that she could say, and none of them will help him. None of them are right. This is one of those situations where she can’t do anything, really. Distance will help, so she has to be patient. 

But there's nothing she wouldn't do to keep him safe and happy. Maybe that's been true for a long time, but she feels it keenly right now.

Twill rubs Union’s arms and back, almost as if she’s trying to warm him up. It’s dumb. Nothing is cold in this city, especially not today.

Twill has so much to learn. And now, she’s sure that she isn’t the only one. They’re all learning and growing and still so very young.

Gods, how are they even here now? Who are they to be here, doing the things they do? Fighting the way they do? The questions ring loudly and multiply inside her mind. Answers are nowhere to be seen.

Twill closes her eyes. She prays to both of their goddesses for strength.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twill was 22 when this was written, so yes she was baby
> 
> also fun fact: this is the moment when she falls in love with union


	27. Masks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morjan gives Twill a few things to think about

Morjan walks the camp's perimeter. Twill’s eyes follow them. They seem alright, at least from what Twill can tell. After this evening, she’s glad for that.

She’s envious of Morjan, but it’s for the wrong reasons.

Admittedly, Twill didn’t understand what was happening the first time she saw Morjan as Maram. It wasn’t just the fact that her friend looked and acted like a different person, it was the fact that Morjan so easily fell into being someone else. 

She can’t claim to fully understand, but after Morjan explained their situation growing up, Twill can at least empathize. Having an identity when the past is just struggle… it isn’t be easy.

For the longest time, Twill would’ve given anything to look like someone else. She didn’t have the opportunity to be anything other than what she is—and she was never allowed to forget or pretend otherwise. _Keep your eyes down. Cover your tail. Don’t talk to visitors. Stay inside._

Twill became more _other_ as time went on, and never had a choice in the matter. Until recently, it never crossed her mind that being herself was the best option. She doesn’t have to hide or fight against the parts of herself that seethe with shame. Maybe she doesn’t have to own that shame. Morjan’s played no small part in these realizations.

Still, Twill wonders what she would be like now, if she had even a fraction of Morjan’s skill. Would she ever have come back to herself, if given an out? 

Morjan’s always been able to do this, always been able to shed and don skins like some sort of shapeshifter. It’s remarkable, despite being rooted in misfortune. 

It’s even more remarkable that Morjan comes back to themselves at all.

Before, Morjan was so willing to take the blame for what happened in city, with the fire. Maybe it’s easier to shoulder the blame, when they can take a break from that burden by putting on a mask. There’s no blame to be had, at least in Twill’s eyes. It was a difficult situation, and it couldn’t have ended bloodlessly. Better to fight now than later, she thinks.

If only she could explain that in a way Morjan would accept.

Morjan is not a bad person. No matter what they say or think, that is not true. Twill looks at them, and does not see anything resembling the evil they all fight. She sees a friend. She sees someone who has fought hard for the people they love, at great cost. She sees someone who tries. And no matter what face they wear, that remains the same. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twill falls in love with multiple people while in marquet, i'm now realizing


	28. Shift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She has a shield now

In the morning, before the party sets off, Twill takes a moment to study the shield Sylus gave her.

There’s a blackened scar across the metal where Erathis’ symbol once was.

It’s not a good thing, this mark. Maybe she should use a different shield, if only so Sylus doesn’t have to see what’s left of this one. But does that matter to him? He wouldn’t have given it to her if it did, right? Once, she would’ve known the answer. Now, she’s at a loss.

Irritation prickles over her skin when she thinks about what he said last night.

She understands how he feels, understands where he’s coming from, but that doesn’t change the disquiet in her heart. Yes, the fire was beautiful. It was a brilliant, chaotic disaster. The world mirrored her insides in a way it rarely does. She gets that, gets the thrill of a brutal fight—no one keeps up with her like Sylus does, or maybe she’s the one who keeps up with him. Regardless, she understands. But what happened yesterday wasn’t as easy for everyone else. She doesn’t know if he sees that or if he even wants to.

Twill straps the shield to her arm. It feels right. In a world where so much has gone wrong, Twill isn’t going to reject this comfort, no matter how twisted or small.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, an english major: the shield is a metaphor
> 
> me, a dnd player: teehee 18 AC, try to hit me now bitches!!!


	29. Warm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Words have weight, both good and bad

_Sweet_. Cade called her _sweet_. Out of all of the adjectives anyone has ever applied to Twill, out of all the things she’s ever thought about herself, sweet isn’t one of them. 

She’s angry and afraid and full of so many things she cannot name, but sweetness? That can’t possibly have a place, too, right? 

She wants this, though, wants to be a kind person. Wants to be sweet.

Caring has often been a source of hurt in her life. She’s spent hours wishing her feelings away, asking herself to feel a little less than she does. It’s never worked. 

“Don’t let it get to you so much,” Oren used to tell her, when their parents ignored her or Fenna’s sharp words cut deep. “What they say doesn’t matter. Don’t let them make you feel bad,” he’d continue, as if it were so simple. 

Words don’t flow over Twill, they hit and they stick. She carries a litany of everything people have said about her. 

Never once has she been called sweet. Never once has her soft heart been a good thing, instead of a crucial vulnerability. It’s a little scary, catching an honest glimpse of what others see when they look at her, especially when it’s not what she expects.

Scary, yes, but also warming, like a sip of tea in the middle of winter.


	30. Rebirth; Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rebirth— Nevan: Welp, I guess I'm a half-orc now! 
> 
> Return— AU where Nevan comes back from the dead

**Rebirth**

Nevan wakes slow. A wolf howls in the distance, almost out of earshot. The air smells like dirt and medicinal herbs; he knows this smell as well as he knows himself. He’s inside Taskell’s yurt. Layers of blankets weigh heavy on him like a shroud. It’s almost too hot.

He opens his eyes, and blinks up the poles and wool felt that make up the roof. The smoke hole at the center is dark; stars blink back at him.

There’s a nagging sensation in his head, scratching at the inside of his skull. He’s forgetting something, which isn’t unusual. Even when he writes things down, it’s hit or miss as to whether or not he’ll remember what he wrote or where he wrote it.

Another howl disrupts the quiet, closer than the last. He remembers.

They were walking along a ravine. Having that well-worn argument, about how Twill doesn’t like heights, but why should Nevan be afraid when he can fly? His memory goes hazy after that, just flashes of darkness and sharp pain and then nothing.

Nevan clambers to his feet, and his head hits the top of the yurt. That’s… never happened before. He stills and takes a moment. Everything looks the same; his bedroll is at his feet, Taskell’s cot is against the far wall. There’s two trunks full of everything he and Taskell own. To his left is the small table and chairs where they sit for breakfast. A fire smoulders at the center of the room. There’s a small lantern hanging above the table. It’s unlit. Normally, he’d be struggling to see in the low light. He isn’t struggling now. The world is cast in greys, but visible greys nonetheless. 

It’s kind of like when he uses magic to see in the dark, but he hasn’t cast that spell for a few days. It shouldn’t still be active, right?

“Steady,” Taskell warns, stepping into the yurt. Did he shrink? Did Nevan get taller?

Nevan’s head begins to ache. He wobbles, and Taskell leads him over to the table, and sits him down in one of the chairs. His hand comes up to grasp Nevan’s chin and he studies his face. Nevan studies him right back, trying to glean what’s going on.

There are dark circles under his eyes, and his shoulders droop. He looks older than he usually does right now, and that worries Nevan.

“What happened?” Nevan asks. The words come out a bit garbled; his teeth feel too big in his mouth. His voice is weird, too. Deeper and scratching, like he has a really sore throat. Only, he doesn’t feel sick, just confused and concerned.

He touches his face, or is about to when… His hands looks wrong. These aren’t his hands. He holds his arms out. They’re supposed to be a bit skinny, he’s always been a twiggy kid, no pun intended, but now he’s… he’s kinda muscular now? His hands are too big, and they look strong and sturdy.

Taskell reaches up to light the lantern. Color floods back into Nevan’s vision. His skin is… green? It’s greenish, with a greyish-brownish undertone, and he blinks hard a few times. His thoughts are completely blank, but he somehow manages to open his mouth.

“What happened?”

“Reincarnation,” Taskell says and sits again.

“I died?” he asks, tearing his gaze away from his hands to stare at Taskell.

Taskell sighs, and nods. “Your friend brought your body back. I promised your parents I would take care of you. It was the only spell I have that could help, but the magic chooses your new form.”

“What am I?”

“Half-orc.”

Nevan’s only ever seen one half-orc in his entire life, and that was at a distance. He doesn’t know what it means to be a half-orc.

There are no mirrors in their encampment. He takes the lantern and goes outside. Taskell shadows him, probably worried that he’s going to fall over or something like that. After digging a shallow hole in the dirt, he uses his magic to fill it with water. At least he still has his magic, at least that feels the same.

Nevan brings up the lantern, and stares at his reflection in the puddle.

Half-orc, yes, that’s true. Green-grey skin, tusks poking out above the bottom lip. Eyes with a black sclera and orange irises. Dark hair, heavy brow.

He doesn’t look like himself anymore. This body feels like it’s the same age as his old one, and maybe the shape of his eyes and nose are the same, and his hair is still long at least, but… His new eyes fill with tears.

“You’re not vain,” Taskell reminds him.

“I know,” Nevan replies. “But I’m not me anymore.”

“That is not true.”

Nevan shakes his head.

“When you flit about as a bird, are you still yourself?”

Nevan shrugs. “I guess.”

“And when you are a wolf, or a bear, are you still yourself?”

Nevan can’t answer, swallows hard against the tightness in his throat.

Taskell rests a heavy hand on Nevan’s shoulder. “Your spirit is your real self. No matter what form you take, that is always true. You will adapt.”

Nevan knows it’s the truth. Somehow, that doesn’t make believing it easier.

Gods, Twill must be beside herself. Does she know he’s alive again? What’s happened to her since he died? How long has it been?

Nevan stands, and only stumbles a little bit. “Where is Twill?”

Taskell grunts, “Haven’t seen her since she brought your body back.”

He leaves. Taskell doesn’t try to stop him.

The only reason why he knows where Twill lives is because he once followed her home in nightingale form. He didn’t really glean much from that experience, only that she announced that she was home, and he couldn’t hear if anyone replied. He has a sneaking suspicion that most people in her house would’ve ignored her.

Looking at the building now, Nevan realizes it’s not that big. When he was a bird, her house seemed palatial, but now it appears to be quite modest. Nevan doesn’t actually know what a big house would look like; he’s spent his whole life living out of a yurt that he can collapse in less than an hour and build back up again in about the same time.

It’s late, but light still spills from a couple of windows.

Nevan doesn’t hesitate to knock on the front door. Wait, is this the front door? It looks like it might be, but what if he’s wrong? He doesn’t get much time to worry before—

A boy answers the door. He’s maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. Cambric, probably. He's human, so he doesn't have horns like Twill, but the resemblance is achingly apparent.

The kid lets out a sound that might be a scream, but Nevan isn’t sure and doesn’t get a chance to ask before the door slams on him. From inside, Cambric shouts, “Oren!”

There’s some thundering feet, the rise and fall of distressed voices, and Nevan takes a step back when the door fly opens again.

Twill’s other brother is there, Oren. His build is similar to Twill’s, though he’s shorter and not nearly as strong-looking as she is. Again, the resemblance is clear, even if their races are different.

“Hi,” Nevan says and smiles. He hopes it looks like a smile, with his new face and all.

Oren has a knife, not brandished or anything like that, just in his hand at his side. “What do you want?” he asks.

“Is Twill here?”

Oren’s expression goes from wary and angry to crumpled hurt. “Who are you?”

This is going to go so well, Nevan’s sure. “My name is Nevan. I think Twill might’ve told you about me? I died.” Nailed it.

Cambric’s face peeks past Oren’s arm. He whispers to Oren, “I thought Nevan was human?”

“Magic does weird things when it brings you back to life,” Nevan explains. “I was human.” Even has he says the words, they feel wrong in his mouth. He’s telling a truth he has yet to comprehend. “Listen, I really need to know where Twill is. My teacher said he hasn’t seen her.”

Oren glares, hot and sharp. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m looking for Twill. Is she here?”

“She left,” Cambric says, voice barely audible.

“Left?”

Cambric opens his mouth, but Oren pushes him back further inside.

“Look,” he starts, and his hand tightens on the knife. “It’s a shitty thing you’re doing right now, so can you just leave us alone?”

“I—I’m not trying to be shitty,” Nevan cries, and holds his hands up. “I’m sorry. I promise this isn’t a trick or a trap, and I know we’ve never met, but Twill’s told me about you both. I thought if anyone would know where she is, you might? I’m worried about her.”

Oren’s shoulders fall. “She’s not in Fyrkat anymore,” he admits.

“What do you mean?”

Cambric pushes past Oren and holds out a necklace. It’s Twill’s string of bone beads. “She gave these to me,” he says. “And said she wouldn’t be coming back.”

Nevan reaches out to touch the necklace, cradle the strand in his hands. He watched her make some of these beads. Cambric doesn’t let go, even as Nevan looks the strand over. Both of their hands are shaking.

It’s so obvious up close—grief clings to these two boys. Sunken eyes, curved shoulders, the deep lines at the corners of their mouths—they are bereft of their sister, and it’s partially Nevan’s fault.

“When did she leave?”

“After you died,” Cambric says.

“A little over a week ago,” Oren says at the same time.

“I’ll find her,” Nevan vows. “I’ll bring her back.”

“She doesn’t want to be here,” Cambric says, words strained. “She doesn’t… this isn’t the right place for her, is it?”

Oren stares hard at the ground. He doesn’t speak.

“I’ll find her,” Nevan repeats.

* * *

**Return**

And there she is, walking towards him on the street. The sky is dark and they’re alone; most people are home at this time of the night. He thinks he’s made eye contact with her, but his tongue is slow and stupid.

“You grew your hair out,” he blurts.

She’s a few steps past him, but she stops and looks back at him. She blinks and there’s an almost-frown on her face. “Um, what?”

Nevan might puke. He’s trying to keep himself together. “Your hair used to be shorter.” That wasn’t the right thing to say. Crap. Way to go, Nevan!

Okay, now she’s actually frowning, but it’s not a mad frown. She says, “Yes, it was. It’s been a while since then… I’m sorry, have we met? I’m not always great at faces.”

Words fail him. It’s the worst time for this to happen, but once he starts looking at her, he can’t stop. Her hair is longer, tied back in a loose ponytail. She’s wearing a breastplate that looks like it’s taken a few hits. The shield on her back is similar, but the morningstar hanging from her hip looks pristine. Chances are she just cares a lot about her weapon. That sounds like her so much. The thought makes him ache.

From what he can see, she has a few more scars on her arms, nothing too extreme. That’s a good sign. 

His memories of her conflict with the vision he sees now. Before, she always hunched over, curled inwards, slouching, like she was protecting the vulnerable parts of herself. There’s no sign of that now—she stands tall, shoulders back. There’s a calmness to her, a sureness, that she never had before. She’s stronger physically, and maybe mentally, too.

Melora's token hangs on a cord around her neck.

There’s a tight feeling in his throat. She’s still beautiful, but how could she be anything else?

“Are you okay?” she asks, and takes a step closer.

Oh, there it is—the heart he knew she always had, but kept locked tight and buried deep. She doesn’t even know him right now, but she’s worried for him.

“I need a drink,” he says without meaning to.

Surprise flickers across her face. “There’s a tavern back that way,” she says, gesturing behind her. “I’m staying there with some friends.”

He nods and they fall into step together. He feels her eyes on the side of his face. Despite wanting to, he doesn’t look back at her. He’d just end up staring again, and that might scare her away. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t.

Inside the tavern, she waves at a group of people at a nearby table, but takes Nevan to a smaller booth in the corner. “What do you want?” she asks him.

He shrugs, and tries to smile. “Anything is fine.”

She flashes a grin and heads off. A brief pit stop to the table she waved at, then to the bar, and Nevan scrambles for what he’s going to say next. She’s back too quickly, ales in hand.

She sits across from him, and passes him a drink.

“How much do I owe you?” he wonders, reaching for his coin pouch.

Twill shakes her head. “My friends and I did the barkeep a favor, so drinks are free for us.”

Oh. Nevan shoots a look towards the table she visited. It’s weird, because he’s glad that she has friends, but envy coils tight in his gut. “That’s nice.”

She nods and smiles. Then the smile fades and she gives him a searching look. “You, uh, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or several. Do I look like someone you know? My name is Twill. I’m not really from the area, so I’m probably not who you’re looking for.”

Nevan downs half his ale in one go. One of the downsides to being a half-orc is that he has to drink more in order to feel buzzed. There wasn’t a whole lot of alcohol available while he was growing up, so being able to drink now is still a novelty. But, yes, the alcohol tolerance might be the biggest downside to the whole reincarnation thing, besides all the times people look at him weird. He didn’t really get a chance to be human among other humans, but he’s sure that would’ve been a vastly different experience.

He stares down into his tankard. “You are. I’ve been looking for you for months. Years, really.” He risks meeting her gaze.

She studies him for a long moment. “What’s your name?”

“Nevan.”

She leans back in her seat. Her face twists, lips curving into something angry.

“Taskell brought me back,” he says.

Twill takes draws in a sharp breath. “How? I don’t—”

Nevan shrugs, and huffs out a desperate laugh. “I only just learned how to cast the spell myself, but I’ve never used it. Would you believe it if I said I asked to see my old body? Taskell gave me this look, you know? Of course you do, you’ve seen it. But he—he didn’t stop me, and that might’ve been for the best. It wasn’t great, but I think seeing what I was helped me to accept what I am now. The magic thought I should be a half-orc, apparently.”

She blinks, eyes wide. “Nevan?”

“Yeah.”

Twill launches herself across the table, knocking over their drinks. She throws her arms around his shoulders. The hug is so tight it hurts. Nevan clings to her.

Her breath hitches and yeah, she’s crying now, and he’s always been a sympathetic crier, so he’s crying too.

When she pulls back, she holds his face in her hands. “It’s still you.”

He offers a crooked smile. “A little greener than before, but yeah.”

She pulls him forwards and he doesn’t resist because it’s her. She kisses him once, twice, thrice, quick like punctuation marks. He doesn’t even get the chance to respond.

Her dark eyes shine with tears. Devastation and joy wage a war across her face.

“Again,” he croaks.

She nods and kisses him soft and slow, like she’s pleading. He kisses her back, even though he doesn’t really know how.

If the hot feeling in his chest is anything to go by, she knows how and that’s more than enough.


	31. Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twill faces her fear of heights with a little help from her friends

It’s _stupid_. Twill knows it’s stupid to be this scared of heights. She doesn’t even have a good reason for it.

It didn’t start with Nevan. She almost wishes it did—almost wishes that seeing the earth crumble beneath him, seeing him fall, was what caused her phobia. But she’s been afraid of heights for as long as she can remember.

It’s stupid, because it was only a little over an hour ago that they fought the statue guardians, and she wasn’t afraid of them. She wasn’t afraid when she felt her ribs crack under the pressure of a boulder-like fist, wasn’t afraid when it turned away and stalked towards Union. She was afraid _for_ Union, of course she was, but she knew deep down that he would not fall, not on her watch. She raced into danger, anger singing in her veins. She watched the light in the guardian’s eyes dim, tasted the blood in her mouth, and she felt powerful.

She hears the encouragement from the others, already on their way across the invisible path, and she wishes she could be grateful for their words. It’d be nice to throw herself into this like she does in battle. But she can’t explain that even though she knows she won’t fall, she’s still terrified to set foot into the abyss. 

Fear brings tears to her eyes, tightens her throat, makes her want to scream like she did when she was a child and the night terrors shattered her sleep. She can’t help but cry, she’s not ashamed of that, at least—and she goes anyway. She takes Morjan’s hand, knowing that Union is leading them, and she closes her eyes and she goes anyway.

Maybe that’s what faith comes down to, seeing something dangerous or unknown and walking towards it despite everything telling her to turn back. If she were a stronger person, she’d be able to go alone, eyes open and clear. For now, she survives on the strength of her friends.


	32. Quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twill takes third watch

Twill likes third watch. She likes the quiet and how the darkness slowly turns to light. The air outside the tent is brisk. Compared to the heat both she and Union give off, the desert’s chill is a relief. 

She walks the camp’s perimeter every half hour or so, doing her best to keep her footfalls soft. The sand helps. It would be a shame to break the quiet or disrupt her friends’ sleep. Between patrols, she sits by the dwindling fire, feeding it what kindling she can find. Her eyes trace the horizon, roaming over the heaving, curling dunes. 

Maybe she’s homesick. It makes her mad, because she never wants to go back there, never wants to be the person she was in Fyrkat. And yet, there’s this heaviness to her. She likes third watch because it breaks up her sleep, and she doesn’t dream as much, but tonight she saw green plains with a river running through. She saw sloping, sod-roof houses with narrow windows. She saw reindeer herds grazing in the distance and everything was blooming.

The desert is beautiful, but it doesn’t mean the same to her. It hasn’t nestled inside her heart and rooted itself there. Sand moves like snow sometimes, when the wind hits it right, but it’s not the same. Twill is full of comparisons, and everything here is just a little bit wrong. 

She can’t go back, though. She won’t. Going back has never been an option, no matter what she’s feeling right now. 

Twill thinks about secrets. She thinks about what she keeps stored up inside her head, and she wonders if those are secrets, too. There are a lot of things she’s never said or told—she wonders how much is meant to be shared. She wonders how much of herself is meant for others. 

She examines her homesickness. Is this something she should talk about? Is this worth showing? No, it isn’t. Like so many other facets of herself, it isn’t important to the mission. Sharing won’t make it easier to bear, so she tucks it away.

In the east, the sky begins to warm, turning blue-grey with hints of orange. Twill stands and begins her last lap around the camp.


	33. Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morjan is dead; Twill prays

Morjan’s hand is cold. The warmth in their skin is only because Twill has her hands wrapped around theirs. Her eyes are dry, gritty, and she wishes she could sleep but she won’t because she knows what she’ll see in her dreams.

There will be shadows and Nevan and a ravine, and Morjan will be transposed onto her past. She’ll see herself losing both, unable to reach out and catch, unable to fight or heal well enough, fast enough. 

She blinks slowly, hoping to see a different world when her eyes open again. Morjan’s body is still; their hand is limp. Twill tries to take a deep breath. It doesn’t work. There’s a vice-like sensation around her throat. A sob sits in her mouth, waiting for the right moment to spill out. Twill swallows it back, but it won’t stay away for long.

Being numb would be a blessing. Twill can count on one hand the times she’s felt numb; emotions riot within her, sometimes quieting but never gone.

Twill loves Morjan. She loves them so much, and she hasn’t even known them that long. She hasn’t know any of her friends very long, in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn’t have any say in what she’s feeling right now.

She is rent in two. Beneath her skin, she is being torn apart, hollowed out and filling with frozen, churning seawater. Something like nausea settles between her heart and stomach.

Her mind cries out to anyone who will listen—her goddess, or Union’s, or Sylus’. _Please, not this, not now. Not them. They don’t deserve this; they still have so much to give. Can’t you see their potential? I can see it, and I’m nothing special, nothing holy. Can’t your grace extend to them? Just this once? Please._

Twill doesn’t want to do this again. But what she wants doesn’t matter, doesn’t change anything. There’s so much room in her heart for love. There’s just as much room for grief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and then morjan sold their soul to a devil in order to be brought back


	34. Caravan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An encounter in Marquet reminds Twill of an old fight

The overturned wagons spark a memory, a sensation, at the back of Twill’s head. The feeling of claws raking over her side, the fiery pain that came with it, and then the horror of her muscles and joints locking into place. She rolls her shoulders, just to remind herself that she has control of her own body.

She scans the wagons for any movement, and when she sees nothing, she taps into the power that Melora gave her. Her fingers brush the oak leaf talisman hanging from her neck, and she casts her senses out to the surrounding area. 

There’s no sign of anything fiendish or undead nearby. Twill lets out a soft sigh, not really in relief, but in acceptance.

The setting is different, so very different. This place looks nothing like the forests in Othanzia. Everything is beige and brown and blue—sand and sky and desiccated trees. A cactus here and there, spots of green against a monotonous backdrop. It’s the overturned wagons that worry Twill. It’s the bodies and the unknown. 

The setting is different, yes, but when she approaches the caravan, she immediately thinks of the day she got her glaive. She and Nevan were miles from home, exploring a tract of forest that bore few signs of people. 

They discovered a faint path through the woods, overgrown and abandoned, but definitely a place where people used to travel. Following it, they came upon a clearing with an abandoned wagon.

If it weren’t for Nevan, Twill would’ve died there.

— 

The glade is about a hundred feet across and surrounded by dark, dense forest. Rock outcroppings dot the area, like the bones of the earth are broken, piercing through grassy skin.

Above, the sun moves towards the west. Its slanting rays bring some warmth, but the air in the trees’ shadows is decidedly chilled. 

The wagon’s contents are scattered in a wide circle. Twill approaches, curious, and Nevan trails behind her at a slower pace.

The wagon itself sags inwards; the wood is rotted and warped in different places. Time has not been kind to this wreck. Twill figures the wagon’s been here for at least three or four years. Between the wear of the seasons and animal activity, she’s surprised there’s anything recognizable left at all.

Almost everything they could’ve salvaged is in such poor condition that it’s not really worth the effort. Still, Twill picks through the meager, rotted foodstuffs and moldy textiles. Deep inside the wagon is a couple of unopened boxes, and she’s determined to find some sort of trophy to remember this occasion.

Near the back of the cart is a trio of bodies, likely the people who owned it. Their bones are stripped of flesh; scraps of their clothes, colors faded into a uniform grey, sit in piles around them. Nevan crouches low and pokes at the remains. A handful of weapons rest haphazardly near the bodies. Apparently their owners didn’t know how to use them.

It’s sad, but the mystery of what happened is even more intriguing.

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Twill wonders.

Nevan hums, and takes a moment before he speaks. “Bears don’t usually attack wagons, and wolves only act like this when they’re desperate,” he says. “There isn’t much damage to the bones themselves, which is weird.”

Twill looks over at him, and frowns. “Nothing gnawed on the bones?”

“Not really.”

“Huh,” she says. That’s weird. Really weird. She turns back to the wagon.

“I don’t like this,” Nevan announces and stands up.

Twill manages to pry open one of the boxes and overturns its contents onto the ground. “Oh wow,” she gasps. There’s a small container—it reminds her of her mother’s jewelry box, the one her father gave to her early in their courtship. Inside is a handful of jewelry pieces—a few rings, a couple pairs of earrings, a silver necklace. Two of the rings have gaps in their bands, and are smaller than the others. “Are these toe rings?”

Nevan doesn’t get a chance to answer before Twill plops down on the ground and pulls off her boots and socks. With careful fingers she puts on the toe rings, one on each foot, on the second toe. When she’s done, she stretches out her feet and wiggles her toes. Nevan laughs, and is about to say something when a rather ominous rustling comes from the trees behind them.

From the gloom stalks forward a half-rotted creature. It looks like a person, sort of, except for its pale grey skin and sunken, clouded eyes. It has no lips, just a gaping mouth full of knife-like teeth.

Even though it’s at least forty feet away, Twill can smell its rancid flesh.

A memory flashes, a story her grandfather told one frozen evening, and she knows what this creature is. Her blood stops in her veins. “Ghoul.”

And then there’s another figure, emerging from the right. It looks like the skeletons on the ground, but it walks upright, somehow holding together without muscle or sinew. Tattered armor hangs on its rattling form. There’s a rusted sword on its hip, and a bow in its hand.

Beside her, Nevan goes completely still. Twill lunges for the weapons on the nearby bodies. One of them has a huge staff with a curved blade at the end. Twill’s never seen one in person, but there was a picture of a glaive in one of Matryona’s books. She tugs it loose from where it’s half buried in the ground. Its weight surprises her, but the ghoul is shambling towards them, and she can’t think much about anything. 

The skeleton fires an arrow that goes wide, but it’s enough to startle Nevan out of his frozen state. He reaches out and touches Twill’s arm. At his word, a layer of thick, bark-like material covers Twill’s skin. Then, Nevan the human is gone and a wolf takes his place. He snarls.

Twill is galvanized. She mimics his snarl, and the ghoul swipes its claws down over her shoulder. She staggers, and nearly falls.

The pain is sharp and overwhelming, but she bears it, screaming, flaring to life, burning with the anger she carries with her always but has never really acknowledged before now. The pain fades, and she strikes back, lobbing the creature’s arm from its shoulder.

Arrows clatter off of her bark-like skin. Nevan turns to the skeleton.

The ghoul attacks again, flailing with its one hand. Something catches as its claws dig deep into her side. Twill loses feeling in her limbs. Cold floods her chest. She can’t move.

Nevan, human Nevan, ducks against her back, avoiding the ghoul. He whispers something, and the frozen feeling inside Twill evaporates. Sensation returns to her arms and she stabs forward, twisting her blade inside the ghoul’s chest. It stumbles backwards, and falls.

Nevan yelps. Twill turns—a withered hand stretches out from beneath the wagon, and has a hold on Nevan’s ankle. A second ghoul claws its way into the open. Its teeth clamp down on Nevan’s leg and he lets out a harsh cry.

Twill’s bare feet nearly slip when she pivots. An arrow pierces her shoulder, and she realizes that the bark on her skin is gone. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should. It just makes Twill mad, and she lets out a low growl.

The ghoul lets go of Nevan and stands. In a flash of light, Nevan is a wolf again, and he bites at the ghoul, taking a chunk of flesh from its leg. It makes a rattling, breathy sound, and lashes out at Twill. Claws catch her arm, and cold seeps into her bloodstream again. It burns in a different way, racing to overtake her muscles and bones, but she grits her teeth and pushes past it.

Her glaive cuts a deep gash over the ghoul’s stomach; its innards slop out, congealed and dark. Nevan latches onto its arm, pulling it sideways, and Twill swings upwards. Her blade slices halfway through its neck, and it goes still. She tugs her weapon free just in time to duck another arrow.

Nevan turns on the skeleton and charges towards it. Twill follows close behind him. The skeleton keeps firing and while Nevan dodges, Twill isn’t so lucky. She barely notices, too focused on the brutality singing inside her.

Nevan knocks the skeleton onto the ground, and once he leaps back, Twill brings her glaive down on its chest. Ribs crack and crumble inwards. The magic that holds the skeleton together fades, and the bones tumble apart.

It’s almost silent, except for their ragged breaths.

Twill drops the glaive. Her hands are shaking violently, and she can’t connect one thought to the next, can’t understand anything she’s feeling right now.

Pain comes roaring back. She closes her eyes against the onslaught, and wills herself to stay on her feet. If three monsters couldn’t bring her to her knees, neither will the wounds they left.

When she opens her eyes again, she seeks out Nevan. He’s standing on the other side of the skeleton. He’s human again.

Nevan stares at her, a dazed look in his eyes.

“What is it?” she asks, voice high and wispy.

“You are amazing,” he breathes.

“Really?”

He nods, fervent.

“You, too,” she replies.

Nevan grins; there’s blood in his teeth.

He doesn’t have many spells, but he does what he can to heal her wounds. “Taskell can help more once we get back. You’re sure you’re okay to travel?” he asks.

She puts her socks and boots back on, making sure that her new toe rings are still in place. “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” she replies, and hopes she’s telling the truth.

Before they leave, Twill grabs the glaive and takes a moment to pick over the small pile of jewelry.

“These are nice,” she says, holding up a pair of silver hoop earrings. “My ears aren’t pierced. Do you want them?”

“I can pierce them for you,” Nevan offers. “I did mine.”

“Yeah, alright,” she says, nodding.

He beams. “Great! I have needles back at camp.”

Twill pockets the earrings. 

–

Twill builds a pyre with Union and Morjan’s help. She doesn’t stick around to watch the travelers’ bodies burn; her friends are kind enough to indulge her, even though they have more important things to do.

 _Melora, please guide their souls, and watch over anyone else who travels here_ , she prays. 

She gets back in the saddle. For a moment she touches her side, the place where the ghoul’s claws cut the deepest. It’s been years, but there are still faint scars on her ribs, ragged and pale against her dark skin. 


	35. Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After three years of silence, Twill writes home

To Saral Junttila

Father,

It’s Twill. I’ve been in Marquet recently, and I thought it would be a good time to write to you.

I’ve written and rewritten this letter several times, and each version is both closer and farther from what I want to say. This is the final version. I’m too tired to try again. I have questions for you, and I hope you can answer them.

This letter probably seems out of the blue. It’s been nearly three years since I left, and if it weren’t for extenuating circumstances, you would’ve never heard from me again. I thought that was best when I left, and I still believe that now.

I deserved better than what I had in Fyrkat. That’s something I’ve learned in the last few months. I’ve been traveling with a good group of people. They accept me, and I think they love me. I know for sure that I can love them back without being afraid. That’s something I struggled with back home, being afraid of Mother and Fenna and everyone else. Because to them, I wasn’t anything good. I was a thorn in their sides, just because I existed. I tried, though. I did my best to be something they could deem worthy.

Nothing worked. You were ashamed of me, and made sure I knew. Maybe it was never said outright, but I knew and I had no choice in being who and what I am.

It wasn’t fair to me. Sure, life isn’t fair, but if strangers I met in the middle of nowhere can find a place for me, then my own family should’ve done the same.

So, I think that I’m entitled to some answers, or even just a point in the right direction. I can’t get back the upbringing I could’ve had, but you can give me answers that will help my future.

When my friends and I were in Shamal Bay, we encountered—and killed—a rakshasa who was working with the Senthil family. You were a Senthil; I didn’t know that until recently. There’s so much going on here—what sort of business does your family have? It’s not just simple mercantile goods, it goes so much deeper than that.

You always acted like it was your fault that I’m a tiefling, and I didn’t realize how true that was. Your entire family is so entrenched in shadows and secrets, where does it start, where does it stop? 

I think I’m in danger, and have been for a long time. Already people have died in Shamal because of devil deals. I don’t want my friends caught in the crossfire because you withheld important information.

If there’s anything you can tell me, please. Please.

Twill


	36. Reply

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s overdue, but she writes a letter to Yen

Dear Yen,

I’m sorry I didn’t write before now. I should’ve. I didn’t because I wanted to give you space, and I didn’t really know what to say. I still don’t know what to say, but I thought I’d try anyway. You deserve my efforts!

I wish you would’ve let us say goodbye in person before you left. I understand why you didn’t. Goodbyes are hard, and everything in Ank’Harel was difficult. The letter you left meant a lot to me, even if at the time I wasn’t ready to hear the things you said about me. Thank you for your words. They help.

How are things going at university? What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned so far? Have you come across any books written in Celestial?

I’m kidding. Unless you’ve actually found books in Celestial, and then I’d want to know what they’re about. We went to a huge library in the desert, which was pretty amazing. If you like, I can share some of the notes I took there.

Morjan told us what happened when they went to see you. I know if I ask how you are, you probably won’t answer me and might just burn this letter. That’s okay. I won’t be mad. I only want you to be safe and happy, which is what I want for all my friends. 

I don’t know what you’re feeling or what’s going through your head. The conversation you had with Morjan wasn’t the best, from what I understand, and that’s putting it nicely. I’m sorry that happened, for both of you. 

You should know, if there’s anything you want to talk about, I’m happy to listen. Sometimes it’s easier to write things down than say them out loud. Saying anything at all, written or otherwise, can be hard. Which is why this letter’s gotten so long and rambling!

We might be heading your way sooner rather than later, and maybe I’ll give this to you in person instead of sending it. It might be weird if you get it after we visit. We’ll see. I’m not sure how good the courier service is here. 

A lot has happened since you left, and I’d really love to hear about what you’re up to these days. 

I miss you, and I pray you’re doing alright. 

Love,

Twill

P.S. I’m looking forward to fighting you whenever you’re up for it! I’m ready!


	37. Misgivings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is only one valid paladin of Erathis, and that's Sylus, everyone else get stuffed

Twill isn’t a naturally suspicious person. Wariness clings to her when she meets new people, but it doesn’t often stay. These days, she has friends who know the civilized world better than she does, and so she trusts their judgements and follows their lead.

When faced with the paladins pursuing Sylus’ mentor, Twill struggles to stay in her place. She hates everything about the situation—the people, the place, the words exchanged. What she hates more is how she has no right to speak here. Her voice would carry no weight, even if she tried, and that stokes a scorching bitterness in her throat.

Amalthea stays at her hip and her shield is strapped to her back. Her fingers twitch and twist into fists. The hair on the back of her neck stands on end.

There’s something wrong here. Her eyes narrow, and it almost feels like she’s on a hunt, senses poised and heightened, ready to wait in stillness, ready to strike.

These men, these supposed servants of Erathis, won’t be taking Sylus anywhere, Twill decides. Their authority is drenched in darkness and after hearing the scion speak… His eyes are flinty, baleful, and beneath his diplomatic words lurks a veiled foulness; distrust adheres to Twill’s very bones, and she wants to snarl and snap. She wants to show these people that she is wild and sharp. She refuses to be threatened by fancy titles and shiny armor. They shouldn’t get to choose what happens to Sylus.

If Sylus wants to go to Whitestone, then they’ll go to Whitestone, but he will not be in chains. Twill won’t allow it. 


	38. Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to write people cuddling, okay??

It takes Twill a long time to fall asleep, and she can’t figure out why. Fatigue clings to her, and her eyes feel heavy and gritty. Falling asleep is usually so easy. It should be easy right now. She feels safe here, comfortable, and she even brought her own pillow to Union’s room. 

He’s curled like a parenthesis, back pressed along her side. His stocking-clad feet are tucked under her leg; Union’s breath is soft and slow with sleep. 

Still, Twill can’t sleep, so she’s stuck staring at the ceiling. Admittedly, the ceiling isn’t too interesting to look at, but Twill doesn’t close her eyes. Her thoughts drift, and then she says a small prayer to Melora, thanking her for getting Twill and her friends this far. She prays for protection and strength, for the wisdom to know the right path, and the courage to take it when it matters most.

Union shifts, rolling over face her. His arms loop around hers, and he nestles closer before settling. His hair tickles her shoulder. Twill aches with gratitude. She doesn’t like being alone at night, and it was stupid to try at all. 

Earlier, Twill was a little embarrassed while explaining the pendants she made to Union. It was one thing to have the thoughts and feelings in her head, but she felt childish when she said them out loud. But he asked, so she answered. Despite all her doubts and fears, she knows that she’s safe with him, so she answered.

Twill sighs, and then she’s being woken for third watch. She blinks at Union, eyes bleary, thoughts jumbled. Oh, she did fall asleep, didn’t she? That’s good. And now she has to be awake. Right, time for third watch.

Before clambering out of bed, she sits up and leans against Union, forehead against his stomach. Gentle fingers untangle the hair that’s looped around her horns, smoothing the strands back into place. If she could just stay like this she would, but she doesn’t trust the paladins outside to keep a proper watch.

So, she pulls herself away and rolls to her feet. She offers a soft smile to Union, and slips out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thought about adding this to my shippy twill fic but lol he doesn't know she's in love with him at this point
> 
> also platonic cuddling is so so so important, too


	39. Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Whitestone, Twill thinks about home

Twill begins to ascend the staircase, following Sylus, but then she stops herself. He disappears, up the stairs and down the corridor. Her hand tightens on the railing. It’s too late to say everything she wants to say, at least for now. She turns and goes back downstairs, feet moving slow.

The training grounds are pristine; the practice weapons are well-kept and made of high quality materials. Twill knows enough to recognize that, even if her knowledge is so limited otherwise.

There’s a bench on the far side of the grounds, near a sparring ring. Twill heads towards it, glancing once over her shoulder for reasons she doesn’t really understand. After pulling off her breastplate, she sits, legs folded against her chest, chin resting on her knees. 

She will never go home. At least, she’ll never go willingly. 

It’s difficult to imagine being happy in a place, and then coming back to it after things have gone wrong. No, she’s wrong. It’s too easy to imagine it.

She pictures herself at the lake, bare feet in the water, pants legs rolled up to her knees. Nevan wades deeper, his shoulders bare and turning brown under the sun. He glances at her, flashing a bright smile, before he sends a wave of water in her direction, aided by magic.

She pictures herself snowshoeing along the winding river, breath leaving her like dragon smoke, Cambric following behind while Oren treks ahead. Cambric chatters about the market day he went to in one of Fyrkat’s sister villages. His voice is chime-like. She and Oren share a warm look; they’re both excited to show Cambric the makeshift fort they built years ago.

She pictures herself standing in one of the fields that surround the village. It’s silent and dark. If anyone were to see her now, they’d probably shout at her to get off their land, but no one is going to look. No one is seeing this except for her. The sky is painted with green and blue auroras, and Twill can’t look away. The night is made bright, not just with starlight, but with shifting colors. She can’t explain it, but thinks maybe the gods are involved. They are speaking to her in tongues she can't understand yet.

This is why she can’t go home. Not because of every terrible, lonely memory, but because of the good ones. It would break her heart to see places and people that can’t be the same. She doesn’t know how Sylus does it. He’s braver than her, of course. She’s always known that.

Morjan is brave, too, to go back to their home. It strikes her deep, the knowledge that her friends are so strong. Twill hopes to have even a fraction of that strength, should she ever go back to Fyrkat.


	40. Message

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prayer, a gentle plea, and gratitude

Hey, Melora. It’s been a few days since we last spoke, and I thought I’d check in again. Things have been a bit busy, but that’s no excuse to not talk to you. 

Thank you for being patient with me; I don’t have much experience with religion, let alone being someone’s… chosen, I guess? I know I prayed to you, but you responded. Does that mean you chose me? I know I’m not special, but I must be something worthwhile if you chose me, out of everyone else.

Thank you, for trusting me with the gifts you’ve given.

I’m still learning patience. I think I need to be quiet more than I am, but then I remember that I spent so much time being quiet—it was the sort of silence that burns and stings and doesn’t heal. And I also remember that I’m with people who wouldn’t tell me to be quiet. They don’t ask me to be less of myself than I am.

Is it possible for you to pass on a message for me? I imagine that praying really only works with gods, so I can’t really pray to the dead, can I? I don’t really know how the afterlife works, but if Nevan is with anyone, he’s with you, right? He was a guardian, one of your most devoted. I don’t understand why he was taken. I don’t understand much. But you know him, right? You’ve seen how he cared for your creations—plants and animals alike.

Can you tell him that I miss him? I miss him so much, and even though it’s gotten easier to bear, the weight of his absence is just as heavy. Tell him that I love him, and that I’m doing alright. I’m not alone, and I have a family. Tell him that he would love my friends, and they would love him, too. 

I wish he could see me now. I’m so much stronger than I was when he left, in more ways than one. I hope he’s proud of me.

It’s hard to admit it, hard to even think it, but I didn’t believe I’d live this long. It sounds so silly, I’m still very young, but when I left home, I thought I’d just walk and keep walking until there was nothing of me left. That’s not what happened. Nevan shouldn’t know how bad things were, but I want him to know that I’ll keep fighting. I’m going to keep surviving, because he helped teach me how, even if it took a long time for the lesson to sink in.

Thank you, Melora, for listening to me and for choosing me. Please keep watching over my friends. The world is a mess, but I know we can help make it better. And I’m afraid. I should be. It doesn’t matter, though, since I’m not going to give up. I only ask you continue to give me the strength I need to keep going. 


	41. Desecrate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you end up living in the bad timeline where your dead best friend is suddenly undead

They clear the undead out of the tomb with ease and efficiency; Twill’s rage is a raucous, gleeful thing, and when she comes down from it, she’s tired in the best sort of way. She takes a moment to reach out with her goddess-granted powers to see if there are any undead left. Better safe than sorry, right?

Twill’s never said it out loud, but she’s sure her friends know: she revels in using her new abilities. Maybe they don’t know the source of her happiness—sure, she’s more formidable and useful than she was before, but it’s what her powers represent that give her the most joy.

Her senses search, and there! At the edge of her ‘sight’ is another undead. Well, maybe they didn’t fully clear the tomb. Easily remedied. “One more, I think,” Twill says, and moves towards the archway near the back of the main room. Previously, she thought the arches were just openings to alcoves housing bodies, but this one’s bigger than the others. The space is deep enough that she can’t see the whole room, and her first thought is that there must be a bunch more undead inside. 

But, no, her divine senses only alert her to one creature.

There are footsteps behind her—she doesn’t actually need backup against one zombie, but she appreciates it anyway. She rolls her shoulders and readies Amalthea and her shield. Rage heat simmers in her belly.

From the shadows of the archway, a single figure emerges. Shorter, thinner, with a gait that makes the hair rise on the back of her neck. Despite its uneven and shambling gait, the undead moves with a deep familiarity. 

He isn’t like most undead they’ve faced. Not a ghoul or a zombie, not a rattling skeleton or one of those horrid bodaks. Not a vampire or a wraith. All of those are just name of things Twill can, has, and will kill. 

This creature is far more horrifying than anything she’s ever seen. She knows his face. Emaciated and rotted or healthy and whole, she’d know his face anywhere.

His skin’s tanned warmth is gone, replaced with a sickly sallow color. There’s a cruel awareness in his eyes, and where his irises were dark brown in life, they now reflect back a crimson red. He’s wearing the same clothes he died in—the threadbare fabrics are covered with dark earth and rust-red blood stains.

Twill takes a step back. The air in the tomb is suddenly impossible to breathe. The image before her blurs. “Nevan.” Her voice breaks.

His grin is both simpering and caustic. “No one here by that name,” he breathes, words rattling in his chest. Beyond his words, beyond the grim delight he takes in speaking them—he still sounds like himself. His voice is the same.

“No,” Twill says, as if it’ll change anything. “Please.”

He lumbers a few steps forward, then abandons his limp to leap at Twill, arm streaking down to strike. She brings her shield up at the last second. The impact jars her arm, and shakes loose the tears in her eyes. They spill over onto her cheeks, through the muck and dust on her face. She blinks hard, and can’t bring herself to lift Amalthea.

Dim light shines in his eyes. His mouth stretches into a wide, toothy snarl. Twill tries to muster the anger she needs to fight. She can’t. It’s gone. 

This is a fight she won’t be able to win.


	42. Flirt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the lyceum, Twill allows herself a little distraction

Twill peers over the railing and scans the lines of tables and chairs in the room below. It’s weird being back at the lyceum; only a few months have passed and Emon seems altogether a wholly different city. But maybe the place hasn’t changed, maybe it’s just her. 

She’s half-listening to the headmaster; whenever she hears the name of a person or a place, she makes a mental note. Her friends can fill in any gaps in her knowledge. 

Below, the students are hard at work, reading heavy tomes and scribbling notes with quills. Some sit close together, deep in soft-spoken discussions. A small part of her envies them, and the opportunities they’ve had to be where they are now. She wonders if any of them started out like her, or if they’re all from proper families and destined to have proper careers.

One of students shifts—a half-elf man around her age, with a shaved head and ink-stained fingers—and he looks right at her. His eyes dart away; his throat bobs with a thick swallow, nervous at being caught. Twill keeps her eyes on him, and when he dares to look back at her, she smiles.

His returning smile is tremulous and surprised, yet there’s a spark of warmth there. One of his hands raises a few inches off the table, his fingers twitch, almost like he’s about to wave at her. The hand drops, and with one last short look, he turns back to his studies.

Not wanting to disturb him further, Twill focuses on the headmaster, and the party’s ongoing investigation.

On the way out, she slows her steps and turns back. The half-elf is staring at her again, and seems to startle when he realizes she’s looking at him. A smile—no, a smirk—spreads across her face and she winks at him. His dark eyes go wide, and his skin flushes a lovely shade of pink. 

Twill’s smirk turns into a full-out grin, and she ducks her head a little before she follows her friends.

The last time she was in Emon, she felt wrong. Like a creature wearing the clothes of a person, without being able to act like one. She stood apart from everyone else, or at least thought she did. The urge to run and hide nipped at her heels. Unease weighed heavy, and she didn’t know how to shed that burden. 

Time has been both kind and cruel to her in different ways. In this moment, however, she’s grateful that she’s come back to this city. She’s grateful that she can fully feel and see the person she used to be, and see the growth she’s made since then.

When Morjan compliments her flirting, Twill feels a pleased heat bloom in her cheeks. She’s never really flirted with anyone before, never realized that someone could be receptive to anything she had to offer.

It was only a smile and a wink—small nothings—but he blushed. Sure, he’s just some scholar that she’ll never see again, but she made him _blush_ , and that kindles a crisp glow in her chest.


	43. Plummet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Union falls, and so does Twill

Through the haze of Twill’s anger, Morjan’s voice is distant, but desperate. 

There’s a snarl caught in her chest, and she unleashes it, growling deep at the wyvern rider. If she looks away from him, she bends, like a wolf rolling over to reveal a soft underbelly. She has no softness now, and she will not bend to monsters or men. Yet, the iota of reason that lingers inside forces her to break eye-contact. 

When Morjan calls, Twill will always respond, even if she's blinded by fury and a hundred feet in the air.

Wind from the wyvern’s wings buffets her from every side, throwing her hair into disarray. She holds tight to the creature’s back. Amalthea is held aloft, ready to strike. Her eyes narrow and scan the battlefield below. Bodies litter the ground. Somehow, their numbers are both greater and far, far fewer than she imagined. Sylus is down, and Amias is nowhere to be seen.

The distance between her and the ground yawns wide, seeming to lengthen the longer she looks. Her stomach swoops, nauseous and wriggling, like it did when the rider pushed her off before. Inside, she is full of sharp pieces and trembling bones. The feeling doesn’t stop, just keeps dipping lower and lower. 

Rage is a terrible thing, but it’s enough to get her through the worst the world has to offer. Fear, though, fear is a poison. Fear is paralysis and oblivion. 

There, Morjan is nearly beyond her sight, and Twill can’t read their expression, but she sees them. Bodies sprawl on the ground in front of them. Most don’t matter. One does. Red, silver, white–Union is there. Limp and bound. Completely still. 

He’s so far away from her. How can she reach him? He’s not—

He can’t be—

Words form in her mind, a prayer before she even knows what she’s doing.

_Wildmother, I am in darkness, and I am afraid. Do not let me fail now. Do not let me fail him._

Her hand pulls away from the wyvern, and her legs loosen their hold. She has to close her eyes, and she plummets. If hitting the ground doesn’t kill her, Union’s death might. So, she falls, fast and breathlessly.

It’s over before her mind and heart can catch up with each other. She lands. Bones and muscles grind and rattle at the impact. She somersaults, trying to break her fall. It doesn’t help much. She ignores the pain and tumbles to her feet. 

Anger dissipates. She runs faster than she ever has before.

It still feels like she’s falling when she skids to her knees beside the body. Union is gone. He’s just gone and it feels like only seconds ago that they and Morjan were scrambling to put on armor and face whatever lurked outside the tent. 

If this was a dream, a nightmare, then maybe Twill could breathe. She’s faced so many nightmares before, she should be able to face this, too. It’s not that simple. This is real. She is awake. 

She swallows hard; the skin on her neck is stained dark with blood and bruises, and her throat is choked with everything that’s gone unexpressed.

Her hands brush over his forehead, cheekbones, shoulders, and settle over his chest. She calls on the spell waiting in her ring.

“We still need you. Come back to us, please,” she begs, and doesn’t recognize her own voice. How can she go from roaring to pleading in such a short span of time? “Please. Please.” 

A cool, sweet breeze passes through her. It travels from the crown of her head into her chest, down her arm, and coalesces around the hand she has pressed to Union’s heart. 

Beneath her hands, his chest rises. His eye opens. She meets his gaze, and time stretches into one long unfathomable moment.

“Twill,” he says, voice rasping.

A sob bursts from her lungs, thick with relief. She is steady now, solid as the ground beneath her.


	44. Wrath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twill preparing to fuck up those assholes who put her and her friends in chains

Union’s skin is warm, and Twill sweeps her thumb over the back of his hand in a soothing rhythm. If she’s soothing him or herself, she isn’t sure. 

Her body hurts from a night of being chained to the floor. Worse, even, is the heaviness in her soul—the ache of being here. Desolation threatens to drown out her gut’s hungry anger.

Everything here is death. Everything is wrong and skeletal and bare. The rain burns, the birds speak unknown languages, and she still has Union’s blood under her fingernails and in the creases of her palms.

Amias and Morjan are here, though, and she, Sylus, and Union are all freed from their chains. Twill bites down on her fear, on her quiet despair. There’s only one emotion she needs right now. 

Fuck those elves. Fuck them and their wyverns and everything they stand for and serve. She’ll kill them with her bare hands if she must. 

Before she stands, she brushes a kiss to Union’s knuckles.

All of her rage is born from softness. She only knows how to hate because she knows how to love. She breathes in a deep breath of stale Shadowfell air. She exhales what little mercy she kept in her soul.


	45. Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By the time she leaves the Shadowfell, Twill will have exposure therapy'd her fear of heights away (I hope)

She lands at the bottom of the pit with a sickening crunch. 

In the haze of her anger, a small and somewhat lucid voice in the back of her head says, “I thought this was the Shadowfell, not the Shadow _fall_.”

Gasping for breath, her rage gutters like a failing candle. She stumbles to her feet. There’s a silver lining to all of this, she firmly tells herself. The horrible crunching sound? That was just her landing on some scattered bones. Her own bones are whole, though she’s pretty sure she’s more bruise now than person. 

She’s felt worse, probably. Comparing past hurts to current ones is a little difficult. It doesn’t matter, so she starts climbing. She does her best to not look down.


	46. Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Union's brush with death will haunt Twill

Twill holds Union’s face in her hands. There are words in her mouth—words thick and heavy enough to weigh down her tongue. So, she doesn’t speak. Instead, she brushes her lips against the new scar on his forehead, the one that radiates out like the sun, or like the light that shines from him when he calls on Sarenrae. Like the warmth she feels in her chest when he’s near. 

A simple kiss isn’t enough; she presses her forehead to his, her unmarred skin to the mark that almost took him from her. It did, actually, take him from her, didn’t it? And she wasn’t there when he breathed his last, but that doesn’t matter. Because she saved him, maybe not with her own strength, but with the strength she borrowed from him.

If she follows her thoughts, she’ll end somewhere deep and dark. Already she’s feeling Morjan’s cold hand clasped between her own, and the ache in her muscles from trying to unearth Nevan. It’s a terrible place to be, trapped among memories of the people she could’ve lost, the person she did lose, and she can’t do this tonight. Not here, not now, not with the shadows seething outside.

She pours all that energy into Union. He will take care of her, because that’s who he is. He loves her, and she isn’t sure what she’s ever really done to deserve that, but it’s a balm against her spiraling thoughts. It’s enough to keep the darkness at bay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another one that could go with the ship stuff but nah


	47. Mortal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twill is the only Killjoy who hasn't died yet

Twill doesn’t know how to put it into words, but she isn’t afraid of dying. She hasn’t been afraid of that for a long time. One of the scars from her time alone, perhaps. She became so accustomed to the idea of her own mortality in the wilderness—sometimes too accustomed, too close, seeking the edge of her existence—that even now it doesn’t bother her much.

It’s not having lived which scares her. The absence of what might be, missing out on who she could become in a month, a year, a decade—that’s what scares her. Leaving behind her family scares her. Not being able to help because she’s dead is more frightening than death itself.

They’ve been lucky so far, the five of them. Their souls aren’t all clean and clear. Being alive comes with numerous, invisible costs. Twill has questions about her soul and who it belongs to. Shadows still stalk her dreams, worse now than ever before, and death is the perfect opportunity to steal her away from the light. She doesn’t want to be given that choice, or forced into being a monster.

If—when—Twill dies, she hopes she’ll have done enough. Even if she can’t pass into an unscathed afterlife, she wants to leave behind a world made better by her life. Her family deserves that—for purpose in the inevitable. 


	48. Oath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I homebrewed my paladin oath: Oath of the Aurora

> You know what is important. You’ve always known, but you were not able, nor ready, to live that importance until now. 
> 
> Go forth. You stand among the few in my service. These oaths are not meant to bind, but to free you. My strength is yours, child. Use it.
> 
> Be the stained glass light that shatters the dark. 

It’s the second night on their way back to the guildhall. The roads have been clear, the weather fine, if a bit windy. After days under the oppressive air of the Shadowfell, being back on the material plane feels a bit dream-like. 

Twill is already awake when Union comes back from second watch.

There must be something in her expression; Union tilts his head to the side, questioning why she isn’t asleep. She tries to wave away his concern, but it’s not until she gives him a honest smile that he relents. She stoops her head a bit, allowing him to kiss the top of her head, like a token of good luck before she starts her watch.

Twill goes outside the tent to walk the perimeter of the camp. The horses are all sleeping, though Boudicca wakes up when Twill approaches. 

Out of all the mounts she’s had the last few months, Boudicca is the smartest. And the least spooked. Her ears flicker in Twill’s direction, and then she brings her head around to nuzzle her nose against Twill’s chest. 

“Hey, beautiful,” Twill greets her. She runs her fingers through the horse’s mane, teasing out some of the snarls she must’ve missed while grooming earlier.

Boudicca lets out what can only be a tired sigh. 

“Yeah, I know,” Twill hums. “I’ll check in with you before I go back inside, alright? Get some sleep.”

She’s found that she doesn’t really need to cast spells in order to effectively talk with Boudicca—it’s nice, having such an even-keeled animal at her side. 

Back at the fire pit, she realizes she’s not alone for her watch. Aysel, Sylus’ mother, seems to be stirring the dying embers back to life. She looks up at Twill, and gives a respectful nod. Twill offers a hesitant smile.

“Uh, may I?” she asks, and points to the fire.

“By all means,” Aysel says and sits back on one of the logs surrounding the fire.

Twill isn’t sure this will work, but that’s what faith is, right? Forging ahead, despite doubt, despite fear, because she is Melora’s, and that’s all the shielding or help she needs.

After building up some firewood, she says the incantations she didn’t know until now, and calls forth a mote of fire in the palm of her hand. She feeds it into the wood, coaxing, calm except for the pounding of her heart. Maybe Aysel won’t notice. She doesn’t really want to look like some amateur in front of Sylus’ mom.

Once the campfire crackles, warm and bright, she sits across from Aysel.

She doesn’t expect it, but it’s her companion that breaks the silence. “You wear Melora’s token.”

Twill touches the oak leaf pendant that rests over her breastplate. “Yes. I’m one of her paladins. There aren’t many of us, I don’t think. Not like your order, but it makes sense that Erathis would have a proper organization.”

A shadowy expression passes over Aysel’s face. “These days I question the wisdom of that,” she admits.

“It’s what Erathis wants, right?” It’s not on Twill to question how other gods operate, or how many followers they keep, or how those followers organize. She likes the freedom Melora gives her, but maybe that doesn’t suit everyone.

“So I’ve been told by my superiors. Former superiors, I suppose now. Erathis rarely gives orders to me herself.”

“Melora doesn’t talk to me much, either,” Twill admits. “Only when it’s important.”

Aysel makes a soft sound of acknowledgment. “You’ve taken your oaths?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

Twill pauses. “Recently. Like, less than two hours ago? I said she only talks when it’s important, and I think she wanted to check on me, now that we’re out of the Shadowfell.” She shrugs, and ducks her head to hide her grin. “It was really nice. She’s very warm and kind. For a long time, I didn’t realize that anyone like her would ever notice me. My vows to her are… It’s good to have direction and something I can believe in beyond myself.”

“I understand. Congratulations,” Aysel intones. There’s a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth.

“Thank you,” Twill replies. She calls fire into her hands again. The spell’s words flow easy, and there’s no doubt inside her now. The fire warms her skin, but doesn’t burn. She cradles the flame close to her chest. 

It’s impossible for her to walk through the world unafraid, but she knows her path. She knows it won’t be easy. She lets herself have this moment of peace, though, soaking in the heat and the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's the oath itself


	49. Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brushing off the ol' braiding skills

She messes up the first few tries, fingers tangled in Morjan’s hair, dark strands tangled around each other. At least her hands are steady, for all their fumbling. 

There’s nothing to prove here, and no mistake too big to fix. So, she just combs through Morjan’s hair, teasing lose the snarls, and she can’t help the self-deprecating smile that flits across her face. She starts again. 

It’s been a long time since she braided anyone’s hair. Her mind is flooded with memories of Fyrkat. It wasn’t a good place for her. Never once a proper home, but she lived there for longer than she’s lived anywhere else.

Home was a location until she discovered that home could be something different. Home could be a person, or a group of people.

Fyrkat wasn’t home. Nevan was home. Mavrres and Oren and Cambric were home, too. Mavrres, who braided her hair and taught her how to braid using Oren’s head, even though he wasn’t super interested in the whole thing. Then, when Cambric asked, Twill taught him.

Now, she has a new home, a new family. Not everything from Fyrkat was terrible, not the books she read, or the beauty she saw in the seasons, or the slivers of love she was shown. Braiding hair was one of those slivers. Fyrkat doesn’t own the goodness Twill learned there; her memories and emotions are her own, and belong nowhere beyond herself. 

She can share the goodness, the kindness, with the people she loves now.

“I think the last time I did this,” Twill says in an undertone, “was with Nevan. He had hair about the same length as yours. I’m a little out of practice.” 

She weaves a crown-like braid into Morjan’s hair, and is pleased with the results. The next evening, she redoes Morjan’s hair, and then braids Union’s—a single, cascading braid that starts at the top of his head and follows the line of his neck and spine. 

Twill isn’t stupid or useless. She’s a good person to have around in a fight, and she’s good at reading a landscape, good at asking questions. There’s something soothing about braiding another person’s hair, though, that makes her feel valuable in ways she normally isn’t.

Taking care of others has many forms—she’s just so used to using herself as a shield that she forgot the value of helping in a way that isn’t self-sacrificing. Loving someone isn’t only bleeding for them, it’s also the small, meaningless things. It’s braiding hair and sharing tea and staying close, both in sunlight and in shadow.


	50. Build

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's strange, not carrying everything she owns with her at all times—strange, but nice

The dress she wore to the masquerade was given to the giants in the east, but she still has the mask she wore. She has the rainbow-striped rocks she found in that cave in Marquet.

There’s a lot in her bag that she doesn’t need to bring with her everywhere. It’s a slow, strange realization—she has a home with her friends, but she also has a physical place to call her own. They’re all building something important together, and it’s starting here, in this house in Vasselheim.

She hangs the mask on the wall above the door. It might look better above the headboard of her bed, but she never sleeps there, so it doesn’t matter. The rainbow rocks find a place on the windowsill. 

The spider that’s made her web in the corner gets to stay there; the way her web sways when the window is open reminds Twill of gossamer clouds or early-morning mist.

The set of knuckle-bone dice she made as a teenager go next to the rocks by the window. The book about druids is placed on the bedside table. She’s read it so many times, she feels as if parts of it are seared into her soul. It makes her feel closer to Nevan, the knowledge that she can recite passages from a book about his people.

Tucked into the desk drawers are the letters she’s collected over the last few months–most notably the ones written by Senthils. It’s good to put everything away in a set place. Twill doesn’t want to carry those pieces of malignant family history with her anymore.

The last thing she does before going back downstairs is pin a piece of parchment to the wall. She puts it at eye-level, so whenever she leaves, she sees it–it’s an angular symbol, green and blue. Beneath, in Amias’ handwriting: “There is beauty in anger. For some, anger is passion.”

She’s copied the symbol into her journal to keep with her at all times. The original will stay here, at home.


	51. Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twill chooses a new surname

Twill doesn’t want to return to Othanzia bearing her mother’s surname. She isn’t a Junttila, and never truly was. She’s even less of a Senthil, and wants nothing to do with those people. Their actions will catch up with them, if she doesn’t get there first.

It’s not that she’s afraid of her name being recognized by someone in Othanzia—frankly, it’s an Othanzian name and there are others outside her clan who have it—but she isn’t part of them. She’s carried the name Junttila her entire life, burdened, waiting for it to mean more than the sum of her isolation.

So, without telling anyone, she sheds her name and leaves it behind like a sloughed off snake skin. 

Being just Twill doesn’t feel different or strange. Maybe she changes her entire name, casting Twill aside, too, but that idea doesn’t stay for long. It feels wrong, somehow. Even if her father chose her name, it isn’t his anymore. It was never his.

She likes the person she’s become, and she’s grateful for who she used to be. Twill was always the name, and always hers.

–

She tells everyone her new name at dinner, after spending several days walking along the edges of the Vesper Timberland. They’ll be heading to Fyrkat soon, but being in the forest is the closest thing to a homecoming she’ll ever get. 

She finds clarity and answers among the trees.

“Winterborn,” she tells her companions, her family. “My last name is going to be Winterborn.”


	52. Summon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Find Steed is a great spell

It’s just before dusk when a prickling feeling creeps under her skin. It drives her outside and into the fading daylight. She slips through Vasselheim’s streets, heading towards the Abundant Terrace. 

Even though she’s one of Melora’s chosen, she doesn’t visit this district very often. Nature is everywhere, both in the wilds and here in the cradle of civilization. She spends more time in Erathis’ and Sarenrae’s temples, purely because she’s with Sylus and Union a lot. 

The Wildmother isn’t a jealous goddess, Twill’s learned, and she is happy to see Twill honoring her oaths, no matter the place.

Still, the people who live in this district here know Twill’s face and greet her like she belongs here. After spending a lifetime feeling out of place, it still startles her when people are welcoming and kind. She pauses to talk with a few of the orchardists and farmers, checking to make sure everything is going well with their crops. In general, small talk isn’t one of her skills, but she’s willing to try, especially for the people here who work so hard for the betterment of the city.

Soon enough, she reaches her destination, deep within the Abundant Terrance, near Heaven’s Stair.

The Birth Heart fills Twill with awe. It’s the largest tree she’s ever seen, even in an area with countless ancient trees. Golden structures wrap around the trunk, stairs and walkways that lead to Melora’s temple, situated just below the tree’s crown. Lanterns hang on lines throughout the branches, giving the canopy a tender glow.

Among the tree’s roots, there are caverns and crevasses. Some are large enough for whole groups of people, and serve as meeting rooms or temporary chapels or shrines. Twill circles around the base of the tree. There aren’t many people around in this area, likely because the sky’s gone dark and it’s time for most reasonable people to head home. 

The priests and priestesses who live here seem to be transitioning from one thing to the next, too. Most people wearing Melora’s colors are heading to the temple, a cluster of greens and blues on the stairs ascending upwards.

Twill thinks about following them, but she’s never been comfortable worshiping in a room full of mostly strangers. When she needs community, she finds Union or Sylus. They’re the ones who taught her how to pray, how to have faith, and that means more than anything she could find in a liturgy she has no context for.

She finds what she’s looking for—a smaller room beneath the roots, one with a dirt floor and a simple lantern at the entrance. She calls fire to her palm and lights the lantern, then takes a deep breath and heads inside.

The spell isn’t a complicated one, and she’s seen both Sylus and his mother cast it. There are no materials needed, just the words and a magic circle. She begins with a prayer, before anything else.

> I am strong on my own, but stronger with you by my side. Thank you for guiding us back home safely. I’m not sure who I would be without you to help me, and I’m so glad that I don’t have to find out. I’m not really sure if this spell is going to work, but I know the words and the symbols. I know what to do with them, and I know what I want from them. Please don’t let me falter.

Warmth washes over her, reassuring and maternal, and she begins drawing a circle in the dirt. Words she’s never spoken before roll off her tongue, filling the chamber with sound and light. Twill falls into a trance, much like she does during her other ritualistic spells.

Time doesn’t exist, her body doesn’t exist—there’s only words and the lines she traces on the ground.

It’s not an exact replica of Sylus’ spell–different goddess, different rules—but even in her abstraction she sees the foundational similarities. It’s a comfort, seeing how one thing echoes another. Her voice is steady, her hands don’t shake. 

She closes her eyes, and when she opens them, the runes on the floor give off a faint, reddish light. The trance breaks, and she takes a deep breath, like surfacing from a dive. The runes brighten, then fade into the dirt.

A shadow falls across the chamber’s entrance, pausing just beyond her sightline. Twill scrambles to her feet, and rushes to meet it.

Beyond the chamber is the largest worg Twill has ever seen. He towers over her, shoulders at the height of her eyes. Dark grey and black fur wraps thick and mane-like around his neck and chest. Spots of crimson mark his chin, chest, and the end of his tail; his eyes are a similar shade of red. His paws are completely black, as if dipped in ink.

His tail swishes, and his eyes widen like he’s surprised to see her. Ears flicker forwards, and his entire body language is so easy to read, even in comparison to Boudicca.

“Hi,” she half-whispers. “It’s good to meet you.”

His head tilts to the side; on the left side of his mouth, the tip of his upper canine juts past his lips. “Twill,” he replies, voice crackling, rumbling, like thunder.

She grins. For the last few days, she’s been trying to think of a name for her new steed, but only now does she know what he’s called. “Juniper.” Her hand reaches out and she pets his cheek before she scratches behind his ears.

He makes a soft sound of approval and shuffles closer, dipping his head to give her better access. She nearly falls backwards when he butts his head against her chest; her laughter rings out into the twilight. Juniper doesn’t say anything, but his wagging tail betrays his joy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> juniper is best boy worg


	53. Ornament

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I made a bunch of OCs because I want Union to have friends while the party is gone

The Ornamental Sword is probably the smallest pub in Vasselheim. While it’s short on space—only a handful of tables and even fewer stools at the bar—it’s big on comfort. Perhaps not physically, since Twill feels a bit like her horns are going to scrape the ceiling, but emotionally. 

It’s the night before the Killjoys head towards Shorecomb, while Union stays here. Twill’s been irritable and cagey all day, and as soon as the sun sets, she heads out into the city.

As soon as Twill enters the pub, she’s greeted by a black-scaled dragonborn wearing an apron. “Oh, hey there! Feel free to sit where you’d like. If you find a table, I’ll be with you in a mo’,” she says, and winks before heading towards an occupied table.

Twill shuffles through the motley collection of tables and chairs to sit at the bar. Many people in the room are human, but there are other, more unusual races present, too. The dragonborn waitress, for one, and she works alongside a half-orc man who seems to be splitting his time between the kitchens and the dining area. 

There’s a table of halflings and gnomes next to a table with dwarves and elves. Two stools over is a firbolg who nods in acknowledgement when Twill sits.

Admittedly, Twill’s seen gnomes and halflings in Vasselheim, but she guesses this might be a place where non-humans like to gather.

It’s curious, until it’s not. A somewhat echoing voice catches her attention. “Haven’t seen you around here before. Just passing through?”

On the other side of the bar, polishing a bell-shaped glass, is a duergar woman. Her skin is smokey grey, and covered in geometric tattoos all the way up to her jawline. Her eyes shine with a dull red light. Her hair is cut close to her scalp; the bristles are white in color, as are her eyebrows and eyelashes.

Twill isn’t sure if she’s ever seen a duergar before, but she’s less caught off-guard than she thought she’d be. The woman’s smile is wide and bright. Despite the unusual color of her eyes, her face is kind and welcoming.

Then, Twill notices the silver choker necklace around her throat, and the equally silver, mechanical bird sitting on her shoulder. Where the duergar looks, the bird looks, too. The bird’s beak opens, and that same echoing voice emits from it. “Or are you here to stay? It’s nice to see a new face, regardless.”

Twill blinks and she feels a flush on her face. “Oh, sorry,” she blurts, and maybe she’s not the rudest person in the world, but she might make the top ten list today. It’s not nice to stare, and she should know better. “No, I sort of live here. I’m Twill.” 

The woman quirks an eyebrow. “You sort of live here?”

Twill shrugs. “I travel a lot, but we have a home base here,” she explains.

The duergar nods. “Fair enough. My name is Eris and I own the place. Before we get too deep into conversation, is there anything I can get you?” 

“Anything that isn’t rum,” Twill says.

Eris laughs; it’s a silent laugh, without the bird’s involvement. “I’ll see what I can scrounge up for you.”

—

Twill doesn’t return to the house until very late. She’s less drunk than she planned on being, which is probably a good thing.

It’s still sort of strange, meeting new people. Twill isn’t shy, but after keeping away from others for so long, having civil interactions with strangers is rather novel. She can’t see herself doing this regularly—socializing in unfamiliar contexts—but it’s nice.

Eris and her wife, a halfling named Petra, didn’t seem bothered by Twill’s awkwardness. They both somehow radiated a welcoming warmth that filled the whole pub.

Once Twill mentioned being a Killjoy, Petra called over the dragonborn and half-orc, and introduced them as Sunniva and Cadmus. Apparently there’s been a bit of hubbub in the city over the new mercenary guild—people are curious about the influx of new people, and about the goals of the guild’s leaders. 

Twill realizes now that she was being interrogated, but it didn’t feel like that at the time. She hopes she assuages the fears they had, and hopes Cadmus and Sunniva spread the word that the Killjoys don’t mean any harm. 

She crawls into Union’s bed. Somehow, he doesn’t wake, though he rolls towards her warmth once she’s settled.

In the morning, she’s going to tell him about the pub, and the people there. She doesn’t want him to be alone when she and the others leave. Maybe he won’t become close with anyone in Vasselheim, but just knowing others and being known will help. At least, Twill hopes it will help. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [here's more details about the ornamental sword and the people who frequent and work there](https://solfell-dnd.tumblr.com/post/190122202114/the-ornamental-sword-excuse-me-while-i-write)


	54. Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Killjoys leave Vasselheim, minus one cleric

The party leaves Vasselheim. Union stays behind at the house, hand raised in a farewell wave. Twill lets herself look back once, and once only. She tries to smile, but it’s a tremulous thing. Before it fails, she turns to focus on the road. The cart won’t drive itself.

They’re not going far, just to Shorecomb, and they’ll be back soon enough. Twill feels like she’s forgotten something important, but Union’s choosing to stay behind. She hasn’t forgotten anything. 

Leaving home wasn’t like this before, but Fyrkat was never really home. It was just a place where she lived. Vasselheim isn’t home, either. Her family is her home now; she’s blessed enough to have a dwelling place in Union’s heart. 

Her hand finds Amalthea, resting beside her on the cart’s bench. The fire Union spelled into the morningstar gives off light, but not heat. The thick leather sheath blots out any brightness, but Twill knows it won’t go away. It cannot be shuttered from existence, cannot be quelled like a torch. 

Her fingers curve around Amalthea’s haft. Through the worn leather that covers the spikes, she half-convinces herself that she can feel the flames’ warmth.

She doesn’t look back again, not because she’s weak and afraid she’d turn around. She doesn’t look back because she’s strong enough to move forward. If anything, Union taught her that.


	55. Ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first night on the road between Vasselheim and Shorecomb

She waits until everyone goes to bed before she gets up from the table. Her tea is cold, but she drinks the last, bitter dregs of it. She sets her mug in the sink, and douses the lights in the common areas. 

Twill breathes deep. Her breath shudders on the exhale. Which room is hers?

She stands in the hall; bedroom doors flank right and left. Her fingers twist together, the return of an old, well-worn nervous habit. The band on her right ring finger feels like it weighs the world. She spins it a few times around her finger. The gold glints in the low light coming from the lantern at the end of the hall. 

The pearl set into the ring glows, luminescent with a swirling, white mist. Union gave her some healing spells and a revivify while they were on the road from River's Rest.

> “The last time you put that spell in this ring, did you think it’d be used on you?” Twill asked.
> 
> There was a pause, then an honest answer. “No.”

For a moment, she considers sleeping on the floor near the fireplace, or even outside with the horses. If she puts down her blanket, the cart would make for a decent place to rest, right? There are two unoccupied rooms where she could sleep, one that would feel emptier than the other.

She could go curl up at the tent entrance, a sentinel, but also an echo of her past self. A person separated, by choice and by fate. Twill can’t live like that again. She can ask for help now, she can let herself be open, let herself bleed. Just because Union isn’t here, that doesn’t make Twill a different person. His absence isn’t nearly important as his presence in her life.

Twill doesn’t have to be alone. So she won’t choose to be.

Slow, but certain, she makes her way down the hall. There’s light coming from Morjan’s room. She sighs, and this time her lungs hold steady, breath calm. She knocks on the door.


	56. Legend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Creepy town rolls out a doormat that has "Welcome to My Twisted Mind" written on it

They arrive in Shorecomb, and Sylus asks what she wants to do next. After a lifetime of feeling like she’s living a little bit outside her own skin, she doesn’t know quite how to proceed. Snap decisions made in heated moments are easy, but taking point? Leading with intention takes practice. And she’s had few opportunities so far.

It’s like she’s looking at a map without a legend—the symbols mean nothing, leaving her lost. 

The town here is covered in a low layer of fog, and it gives reality a soupy quality. Her dreams were thick with the same haze. Did Melora really send her those visions that left her reeling, tumbling out of bed? Or is something else at work here, the same force that called those deep water serpents so close to shore? Is it what’s playing with the memories of the people here, blotting them out like thick clouds over sun?

There needs to be a solution here. There’s always an answer, but the questions are shaped so strangely. Where to start?

That sense of existing outside herself intensifies. She suspects it will get worse, much worse, before it gets better. If it gets better.


	57. Ancient

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Shorecomb, Twill fears her soul isn't her own

Malaise settles into her bones. She keeps seeing things from the corner of her eye, keeps feeling some faint sensation on her skin, at the ends of her hair, along the armored planes of her back.

Do her feelings have no sway here? Was she born belonging to someone else, something else?

Twill looks to the asylum, high in the hills beyond Shorecomb’s walls. Apparently she has a relative residing there, if there’s truth to the echoes in her dreams. He saw her, recognized her in a way she’s never been recognized. Unfamiliar yet searingly known at the same time.

If Twill belongs to anyone, if her soul can be sold to any one source, it would be to her newfound family. Union and Morjan and Sylus and Amias. She belongs to them, if anyone. If Nevan were still alive, she’d be his in whatever capacity he wanted. 

There’s a hissing voice at the distant edges of her mind, one that sounds like demon whispers and devil croons. It tells her that she has no choice. Her soul was never hers to control or give. 

She fears the false hydra within the earth and manor, and she fears the unknown people in the asylum above. Someday, if they survive this skewed place, she will see her homeland again. The thought strikes more horror—Othanzia was never meant for her, even as she loved the landscape more than she’s ever loved herself. 

The fear she feels is primal, ancient, prickling at the most base parts of herself—the parts she let overtake her those three years in the wild. 


	58. Catch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, Amias is crazy, and Twill is tasked with watching over him

While Sylus and Morjan go hunting for diamond dust, Twill sits at the edge of Amias’ bedroll. Technically, it’s Sylus’ bedroll, but since Amias is bound by Sylus’ rope is seems only fitting that Amias is made comfortable on Sylus’ bedroll.

When Twill looked at that strange sheet of paper in Marquet, she felt like she had to possess it. That single scrap of paper somehow made her brain think that she needed to own it, to bring it with her, to cherish it like a prize. It’s frightening, how an object touched by outside forces can warp the minds around it. If a sheet of paper can evoke such a reaction, it’s no surprised that an entire book could make Amias act like a completely different person.

He’s mumbling something in Celestial. Twill doesn’t know what he’s saying, but she recognizes the language. Amalthea could probably translate for her, if she asked. For once, she doesn’t want to know.

She hasn’t put away the piece of paper she shoved into his face earlier. The one from her journal, where she copied the symbol Amias drew. It’s only the symbol, but she remembers the words written on the original. “There is beauty in anger. For some, anger is passion.” 

Anger is a tool, a driving force, but it’s also a double-edged knife. It can hurt her and the people around her, the people she loves most. 

If he’s going to mumble in a language she doesn’t know, she’ll do the same. She tries to catch his eye, but doesn’t know if she succeeds. In Elvish, she says, “I’m sorry for trying to hit you. I’m scared and I’m angry. It’s not a good reason. It doesn’t excuse my actions.”

She puts away her journal and papers. Until Morjan and Sylus come back, she prays to the Wildmother. She asks for strength that she can’t have on her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the twill & amias relationship is basically a rambunctious puppy hopping in circles around a disinterested cat
> 
> but if someone even looks at the puppy wrong, the cat goes into attack mode


	59. Bid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do all auctions end with an assassination?

She walks back to the tavern, a conflicted feeling dogging her heels. It feels like there are eyes on her back, but she doesn’t turn to look. If anyone really is watching her, she doesn’t want to give them the satisfaction of her paranoia. 

M reminds her of a snake hiding beneath a bed of flowers—poison cloaked in petals. Benevolence hiding dark intent. Initially, she couldn’t figure out why M was at the auction—she wasn’t intent on any of the items, and instead was more interesting in needling the nobleman in the front row and pestering Twill with questions.

Normal people don’t go to auctions to aggressively socialize and throw large sums of money about for no reason or aim. 

But then the nobleman ended up dead in the street, and M stood at the edge of the gathering crowd, wiping blood from a dagger. The same dagger the nobleman won at the auction, actually. 

If she thinks too deeply about it, she’s going to panic, and she can’t do that until she’s somewhere safe. Like, back at the tavern, in her and Union’s room, with the door closed and the drapes pulled shut.

She has the cloak. That’s what she’s going to focus on. She has the cloak, so everything she’s done in the last week isn’t for nothing. 

> “I don’t know if it helps, but this cloak is going to help protect someone I love,” she told Himo, the elven auctioneer. 
> 
> They were visibly saddened to sell the items from their collection. Traveling is always dangerous, and the caravan was hit hard by an unknown assailant. Twill hopes the gold she hands over will help.
> 
> “It does, actually,” Himo admitted. 

When the tavern comes into view, Twill takes a deep breath. She isn’t going to run, like some scared animal back to her den. She makes it inside without any further incident and slumps back against the door for a moment. A frisson of fear washes over her, then ebbs away, leaving her more exhausted than she was five minutes ago.

Excitement trickles in, slowly, and then she’s racing to the rooms. She has to tell Union immediately that she has Morjan’s birthday present, and maybe… Maybe she’ll bring up the other stuff she’s been meaning to talk about, too. Regarding Morjan.

She hikes up her skirts, literally and figuratively, and makes her way up the stairs.


	60. Shaken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fucking rakshasas and the their fcuking dominate person spells what the fucking hell

Sylus’ nonchalance is always a strange sort of comfort—he cares when it’s called for, like when killing someone who threatens innocents, or when upholding the law. She wants to keep apologizing for hurting him, even as he kicks aside the broken, dulled gems that rested inside the fiends. 

He has a way of re-framing things that makes her mind quieter. They’re all alive, and their enemies here are dead. None of them went down besides Sylus, and he was brought back up just as quickly. Overall, it really wasn’t a terrible fight. They’ve been through some horrible things, and this isn’t going to make the list. Sylus is telling the truth—he’s had worse. 

Twill turns to make sure everyone else is alright. Morjan hugs Union, and he hugs them back, and Twill needs to be closer than she is right now. It isn’t until she has them both gathered in her arms that she notices how badly she’s shaking. Her breath leaves her in a stuttery mess; there’s still a slimy residue coating the inside of her mind, the remains of the rakshasa’s spell.

For those brief few moments, she moved outside herself. Her actions—her attacks against Sylus, the impact of morning star on armor—were both her own and someone else’s. Her memories under the spell’s effect are haze-like, a blurry miasma of belief that what she was doing was right and correct. 

What if she had killed someone? Would that have broken her out of her fugue? Would that have been enough to shake the magic’s hold? Or would she just continue her rampage, unable to stop or be stopped?

She still has dreams sometimes, nightmares really, where the most hellish parts of her blood take over. She dreams that the shadows at the edges of her sight conquer her, and she becomes the darkling, devilish thing everyone back in Fyrkat expected her to be. Everyone was waiting for it, for her to turn on them like a wild animal, running wild, blood and death in her wake.

The spell felt like how she imagined it would be to lose control so wholly, so completely, in a way that leaves no room for reason or choice.

She’s safe, and the people she loves are safe, but she can’t stop the terrified tremors that race through her bones. She holds Union and Morjan tightly.

Sylus is right—they’ve all been through worse.


	61. Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twill visits Nevan's grave

There’s only one reason why she’d ever want to go back to Fyrkat. Oren and Cambric don’t need her and have probably done better without her. Mavrres is so remarkably self-possessed and self-sufficient that they definitely never needed her in the first place. She had no friends in the village, and doesn’t care to see the other members of her family…

So, that just leaves Nevan. 

It doesn’t take long to find Taskell’s camp. She knows the signs to look for, and asks a charismatic wolverine for directions in exchange for some food. He leads her to a clearing, grassy, with a fire pit and an off-white yurt. Taskell is resting on a log, soaking in the sunlight that sifts through the trees.

Taskel looks like he’s aged a century in the last few years—hair gone from stony grey to snowy white, wrinkles as deep as the fissures in the earth. Twill enters the clearing, and Taskell’s eyes snap to hers. There’s something heartbroken and lost in his expression. His face echoes the feelings Twill carries in her rib cage. And then the expression is gone, shuttered and stern.

Taskell takes her to the grave site. He doesn’t speak or look at her again; Twill’s heart draws in the quiet and aches with everything she wants to say but can’t, won’t, shouldn’t. Taskell never liked her, and only tolerated her presence for Nevan’s sake. There’s no reason for him to even acknowledge her now, but he nods and leads her through the forest when she asks.

Beneath a towering oak, there’s a simple, flat stone pressed into the earth. Nevan’s name is written there in Druidic, a language Twill recognizes but cannot read. She imagines that one day the oak’s roots will grow up and over the marker, burring the proof that people were once here.

Taskell leaves, silent as he arrived. Twill wants to thank him, but she won’t break the silence that stretches between them, a gulf that spans years.

It’s fitting that Nevan’s tomb is nothing more than the earth itself. 


	62. Hypothetical

_Do some people deserve to die?_ Twill doesn’t know. The others at the table seem firm in their belief that, yes, there are people who deserve death. Twill might’ve agreed with them once, but not for the right reasons.

She sidesteps the conversation as best she can. 

It’s not that she isn’t willing to debate the question. She’d like to talk about it, but she feels uniquely unequipped to do so. When it comes to morals or ethics, she doesn’t from a place of good footing. 

On the ground, during a fight, she doesn’t think twice about defending herself. The blood on her hands doesn’t stain her skin or haunt her sleep. Face-to-face, her enemies make their choices, and she responds in kind. She is a huntress, and won’t deny her nature.

Beyond the hard practicality of life, it’s hard to condemn ambiguous strangers with wholehearted certainty. The world is complex, people even more so, and it’s easy to fall into believing a lie. 

For most of her life, she was told she was wrong. It was a privilege that she was allowed to exist, especially since her existence was an affront to the order of things. And she believed that, because there wasn’t much else to believe. 

It wasn’t so simple, of course. There was always that small, rebellious voice who cried out against the hurt, a spark of anger that knew better, but what was a child, a teenager, a sheltered young woman, meant to do with that?

She knows a different truth now: Saral’s sins are not hers, even if she is a manifestation of them. Knowing doesn’t erase the past, though. It only eases the burden of it. 

Years steeped in shame made her worldview small, and left her without a roadmap for dealing with higher hypotheticals like morality. Her companions seem to think the question is a simple one, but what if it isn’t? Maybe she’s missing something. Maybe they all are.

She doesn’t come from a place of formal education or spiritual guidance. The Wildmother’s presence still feels new in some ways, though Twill’s half convinced Melora claimed her long before she knew.

The question remains, regardless, but it’s not Twill’s job to answer it. At least not right now.


	63. Stygian

_Stygia._

The name echoes through Twill’s rage-wrought brain, shaking loose the knowledge that, no, she is not in her forefather’s realm. This isn’t a safe place, but at least she’s not beneath Mephistopheles’ gaze.

It may not be Cania, but she imagines the bitter cold feels the same.

The archdevil lords over the party from the plateau above--a mess of human, scorpion, snake, and bat parts.

The warmth of her friends at her back fights off Stygia’s cold. The sureness she has in her own strength is enough to ward away the fear.

Oh, she should be afraid. There was a time when the very idea of being in hell would bring her to tears. _Not anymore_. Being here is an opportunity to kill something that deserves death a thousands times over, something that has hurt countless people across untold years.

Being in Stygia, at the hands of an archdevil? That’s a gift. Twill’s going to make the most of it.


End file.
